


snippets in space

by teacupfulofbrains



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 30 Days of Writing, And no one dies, F/M, Gen, M/M, but y'know, lots of fluff, lots of platonic relationships - Freeform, only the tiniest smidgeon of angst, plus one day bc it's december, ships are there but not the main focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-09 05:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 24,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupfulofbrains/pseuds/teacupfulofbrains
Summary: 31 glimpses into the life of team voltron, featuring holt family shenanigans, general shenanigans, and spectacular idiocy on all accounts.(OR: 31 short prompt fills for the month of december, centered around team voltron)





	1. day one: s o m e t h i n g n e w

**Author's Note:**

> hey there, friends! there are thirty-one prompts, and each prompt will be a short ficlet set in canonverse! one prompt a day until december is over! please enjoy!! 
> 
> day one: something new  
> allura is having difficulty adjusting to the methods of the new paladins.

“They’re supposed to be the defenders of the universe.”

Coran smiles, watching the paladins on the monitoring screen. They’re engaging in some kind of earth tradition that Lance had mentioned in passing when Allura had pressed him. It involves taking pillows and flinging them at each other, in some kind of mock war. It isn’t even serious – it’s just paladins, playing games with each other.

“I know, princess.”

“Of all the people the universe could have sent us to defend it, _this_ is what we get?” Allura is seething, and Coran can’t say he doesn’t understand why. She had planned a strict training regimen for the paladins that day, only to be brushed aside as Shiro claimed they had something far more important to do. He understands her frustration and anger; she wears it remarkably similarly to someone else he once knew.

Suddenly, he is a young man again, and Alfor is standing in front of him, laughing, laughing, playing some kind of game with the other paladins even as Zarkon stands beside him and shouts orders. Alfor’s only response is laughter; the game involves throwing small orbs that, upon contact, burst fluorescent bright colors all over the skin. Alfor’s entire face is orange, as orange as Coran’s hair, and his fingers are stained a blurry rainbow of color. 

“We’re supposed to be working!” Zarkon yells, and then an orb explodes against his armored chest. Suddenly, neon yellow blares on his armor, and everyone slowly stops what they’re doing to stare at him. Zarkon looks down at his chest, then very slowly lifts his gaze. Alfor is frozen, orb in hand, and everyone looks around to see who threw the offending orb.

Honerva stands in the doorway, yellow smears on her fingertips, another orb in her hand and a devilish smirk on her face.

“Honerva?”

“You need to loosen up more, Zarkon,” she says, and then she hurls another orb. Zarkon ducks, and it splatters against the wall, but when he stands up again his face is bright pink anyway. “Live a little. I understand that you must defend the universe, but work cannot be your sole focus. It is important to take the time to rest one’s body, with sleep, and also to rest one’s mind, with play.” 

She walks across the room, pushes herself up on her tiptoes, and kisses Zarkon on the cheek, soft and sweet, and then she pulls his hand out and places an orb in his palm. He watches her, and then he leans in, as though about to kiss her head.

Coran sees the devilish twinkle in his eye a split second before everyone else does, and has the common sense to duck. Zarkon hurls the orb on the ground, splattering every single other paladin in green ink, and Alfor waits only a moment before laughing raucously and throwing himself into the fray. Honerva and Coran lock eyes, and he very carefully bends to pick up an orb, maintaining eye contact all the way, before he hurls it at her.

It hits her in the face, and she smiles, and then he’s running for his life.

Coran smiles, even as Allura continues to complain. He looks at the monitor, where the pillow fight has devolved into people throwing pillows at Keith and seeing how fast he can slice them in half before they hit the ground.

“Princess,” Coran says, and she turns to look at him.

“Yes?”

“I know that you remember Voltron a certain way,” he begins, cautious and careful, “as do I. However, I believe that it is important to create new traditions. We will always honor your father’s memory, as we honor the memories of all the brave paladins that first defended the universe. but these are not the paladins of old. They are new paladins, and we cannot expect from them what he expected of your father and his team.”

“They are still paladins,” Allura protests, but she seems less convinced than she was before.

Coran places a hand on her shoulder in sympathy. “I understand, princess. It is difficult to take on new roles and lead a new team of people and change your expectations to fit this situation. I know this role is strange for you as well, and not something you ever wanted to have. I know your father never wished this upon you, either, but new does not always equal bad.”

Allura looks at him, and he can see her struggling to hold on to the last vestiges of her regal attitude, of her memories of her father. “it is so difficult, Coran. I miss Father. I miss Altea. I find it hard to believe that these new paladins will ever live up to the standards I expect of them - the standards upheld by my father's team.” She's hesitant, and Coran knows that she only takes this role because she feels she must. She is still young, and she should never have had this responsibility on her shoulders. But he believes in Voltron, and he believes in Allura.

“I know, Princess Allura. But we must accept that this is not the Voltron we remember, and that it will still be good. We will defend the universe anew, and it will be safe in their hands.”

He smiles, glances at the monitor on last time, and then says, “I wonder how many pillows Keith can slice from the air at one time.”

Allura is silent, watching the monitor, as Lance flings three pillows at Keith, who slices them with ease and laughs at Lance's frustrated groan. But then, slowly, she smiles, shuts down the monitor, and says, “My guess is nine. Shall we find out?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Princess.”


	2. day two: s o m e t h i n g y o u l o v e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day two: something you love  
> pidge is trying to work, but stupid boys keep interrupting to talk about their stupid crushes

Pidge is three seconds away from throwing a screwdriver at Hunk’s head.

“Shay is just so –”

The screwdriver sails through the air and cracks against Hunk’s paladin armor. He yelps, even though Pidge is fully aware that he’s not actually hurt, and whines, “What was that for?”

“I’ve listened to you gush about how much you love Shay for the past four vargas, Hunk. And I love you, man, but there is only so much gushing I can take! I have shit I need to do! Shiro wants me to integrate cloaking tech and extra fuel boosts into some of the rebel craft, and their ships are a whole different ballgame! I asked you to come here and help me, not bitch about your love life.”

Hunk, to his credit, does manage a whole varga of helping Pidge pore through blueprints and pointing out mechanical flaws. “Well, I really don’t want the ship to explode when they try to superspeed away from the Galra, y’know? They won’t all be able to pull a Keith and summon the Red Lion to come and save them.” Pidge sweeps bangs out of her face and feels the smear of grease across her forehead.

“Hey, it worked for Coran and I!” Hunk protests. “On the Balmera, remember?”

Pidge facepalms as Hunk drifts right back onto the Shay tangent. “Alright, that’s enough. You’re banished. Go gush to Lance, if you’re so inclined. Some of us have actual work to do.” She shoos him out of the lab, pushes her hair behind her ears, and grabs a wrench.

She’s on the verge of hurling half an engine block across the room in frustration when the doors hiss open again. “You have something on your face.” Keith offers her a scrap of cloth; Pidge raises an eyebrow at her preoccupied hands, and Keith very awkwardly leans down to scrub at her cheek. It’s a little too rough, a little too much pressure, a little bit shaky, but she knows he’s trying, and she appreciates the gesture.

“Thanks, Keith.”

“Do you need anything?” Pidge does a double take at that; Keith is awkwardly staring at the “organized chaos” that is the lab. “I just – I don’t have Hunk’s expertise, but I did have to do a lot of repairs myself back on Earth, and – um, well, I – I figured you could at least use a second pair of hands, right?”

Pidge throws the load of space junk to the side and says, “Well, I’m not exactly the strongest person in the world, so I guess I could use your wiry Galran strength.” That gets a small smile on his face, and then they’re dragging things around the hangar.

“So what brings you down here?” Pidge asks. Keith stiffens, and she hastily adds, “Not that I don’t appreciate the help! You just – you don’t venture in here that often, man. What’s up?”

Keith mumbles something, and Pidge is pretty sure she catches something about Lance. Inwardly, she sighs; she literally _just_ kicked Hunk out of here for waxing poetic about Shay, and if she asks Keith what’s wrong he’s going to wax poetic about Lance. But she’s never been one to deny someone the chance to vent their negative feelings. Keith, in particular, is ridiculously guilty of bottling all his feelings up and letting them affect his recklessness and decisions. Pidge knows all too well the consequences of Keith shutting all his feelings inside and not letting anyone help him.

So she swallows her pride and says, “C’mon, Keith. You know you can tell me. What happens in the lab stays in the lab – I won’t breathe a word.”

Keith is silent for a moment more, and then he opens his mouth and the words come pouring out in torrents. He rants about how he’s _absolutely positive_ that Lance was teasing him during training today, how no one straddles someone when they’re pinned unless they have other intentions, about Lance’s soft skin and soft hair and soft eyes and soft _everything_. But he also talks about the sharpness of Lance’s mind, how he thinks his way out of ridiculous situations so fast that it gives Keith whiplash. Somewhere along the line, they stop working on the rebel craft and end up slumped against each other in the cockpit, Keith softly gesturing with one hand while Pidge slumps against his other arm.

“I think I love him,” Keith whispers. “And I don’t know what to do about it.”

Pidge isn’t sure how to respond to that. She’s never loved someone the way Keith thinks he loves Lance, or the way Hunk loves Shay. But she loves her brother, and it’s a different kind of love but Pidge thinks that maybe, if she can translate Galran and Altean, she can help Keith.

“I’m gonna be honest here, man, I have no idea how to deal with love like that,” she says, and yeah, that’s probably a good start. “But the people that I do love, I don’t tell them I love them. I show them. I do my best to make things that they’ll like, or that will make their lives easier. Sometimes I give them actual things, sometimes I just give them my time. I let them talk about what they love even though it’s distracting me from what I love. If you can’t tell Lance you love him, maybe you can try to show him.”

Keith smiles at her, and his eyes shimmer weirdly in the dim lighting (stupid weird-ass Galra features) but he’s soft in this light.

“Thanks, Pidge.”

“Anytime, man.”

“I love you too, y’know. I never had a family besides Shiro, but I like to think that if I’d stayed on at the Garrison we would’ve been friends. You’re like my little sister.”

“Right back at you, man. Surrogate big brothers, all of you.” The cockpit is warm, and Keith’s jacket is comfortable, and Pidge is drowsing asleep. She can feel Keith picking her up, feel him moving through the castle. “ ‘Cept Shiro. He’s space dad. Space dad 2-k-alw’s.”

Keith chest rumbles with laughter as he gently sets Pidge in her bed, and the last thing she remembers is the warm fuzzy love for her newfound space family bubbling in her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PIDGE AND KEITH ARE TOTALLY SPACE BROS FIGHT ME ON THIS.  
> 


	3. day three: s e l f l o v e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day three: self-love  
> after a particularly brutal mission, lance steps up to give his team a well-deserved break.

Lance is stumbling when he descends from the cockpit, and his knees give out beneath him. Keith is quick to catch him, but he’s no steadier, and they end up slumping together in a muddled pile at Blue’s feet. Pidge is wincing in Hunk’s arms; he’d scooped her up amid feeble protests when they noticed she was refusing to put weight on her left foot. Shiro looks haggard as well, face covered in a thin sheen of sweat, hands clenched unnecessarily tight. Allura’s lips are pressed tightly together in a thin line, and the sparkle is gone from Coran’s eyes.

It was a hell of a mission.

They’re all bruised and battered, and Lance is thanking every god and spirit and cosmic entity he can think of that none of them require a healing pod. The lions aren’t that much worse for wear, although Lance thinks they could definitely use some sprucing up. Right now, though, all he wants to do is sleep.

“Team,” Shiro says, in his authoritative I-am-the-leader-respect-my-authority voice. Lance lifts his tired eyes, but he refuses to lift his head from Keith’s shoulder. He can’t, even if he wanted to; Keith’s head is propped against his, and Keith isn’t moving. “That was brutal. There’s no other word for it.”

“Not one word, no, but I think the phrase “depths of hell” might be a little more than appropriate,” Pidge mutters. Keith’s chest spasms in something Lance thinks might be an attempt at a laugh, and he smiles a little. Pidge and Keith have an easy brother-sister sort of relationship, the kind that makes Lance’s chest pang in remembrance of the family he left behind. But he doesn’t let himself get distracted by those thoughts anymore, not unless it’s midnight and he can’t sleep; he has to focus on defending this new, found family, this family that he chose and that chose him back, that he built from bedrock and rivalry and anger into soft smiles and teasing glances and gentle touches.

And he knows what they need right now.

“It didn’t go the way we wanted it to. And that’s disappointing, but it’s over. There’s nothing we can do now except be better the next time. We should all try to go get some rest,” Shiro says, “we’ll be back at it again sooner than we’d like.”

“No, Lance says, and he can feel Keith shift to look at him as everyone else’s gaze slides to him. “No, we shouldn’t just let this go. It sucked, yeah, and we could have done a hell of a lot better. But we can’t just go our separate ways and beat ourselves up about this. That isn’t going to solve anything. If anything, we need to stop being paladins of Voltron, at least for a few vargas or so.”

“What are you saying, Lance?” Allura’s tone is measured and cautious, just short of clipped. Lance chooses his next words carefully.

“We spend all our time saving the universe and taking care of other people. We need to slow down and take care of ourselves. We won’t get anywhere if we kill ourselves trying to save everyone else. We need to love ourselves a little bit more.”

He stands, shaky, and pulls Keith up next to him. “Let’s go to the lounge, guys. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

So they all go, piling on the couch in a messy tangle of limbs and hair and half-on, half-off armor. At the very least, they all manage to take their boots off. Lance ends up wedged between Keith on his left, curling under his arm and against his chest like the Galran space cat he truly is, and Hunk on his right, arm around Lance’s shoulders and head propped against Lance’s. Pidge sprawls across their laps, feet propped in Shiro’s (mindful of her probably-sprained ankle) and head in Keith’s. Keith is gently combing one hand through her hair, and if Lance didn’t know Keith was the space cat he’d swear Pidge was purring.

“Right now, we sleep,” he says, and he’s already half asleep, drowsing in the warmth and security of his team. “Later, I kick all your asses at video games. We take a self-care day, and then we go back to caring about the fate of the universe. If you run yourself ragged trying to save everyone, you’ve failed to save the person that matters the most.”

Shiro nods – or at least, Lance thinks he’s nodding until he realizes Shiro’s actually nodding off, slumped against Hunk and snoring lightly. Pidge’s breathing is light and even, Hunk is snoring not-so-lightly, and Keith is drooling all over Lance’s chest. Allura sits down next to Keith, pulls her legs up and tucks them neatly beneath her dress, and leans against Keith.

“This wasn’t a bad idea, Lance,” she tells him. “It is important to rest and relax.”

“I know we’re supposed to defend the universe,” Lance mutters. “But the universe survived this long without us, didn’t it? It can survive a little bit longer.”

Allura says something else, but her voice is muted and muddled. Lance’s eyes are already closing, and when he wakes up he’ll have a crick in his neck from being Hunk’s pillow, and Pidge’s knee will be dangerously close to his crotch, and Keith’s hand will have found its way into his, fingers laced together, and he’ll be trying to regain blood flow in that hand because Keith has _one hell of a grip_ and his legs will be asleep and they’ll all be sweaty and sticky and gross.

It’ll be the best night’s sleep Lance has ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> insomnia is a wonderful thing -_- i wish i could sleep as well as the paladins do here. oh, well. enjoy!!


	4. day four: t h e s u n s e t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day four: the sunset   
> five sunsets that mattered to the holt siblings.

Matt Holt pushes his new too-big glasses up the bridge of his nose and adjusts his arms around the green blanket bundle, pressing it to his chest like it’s the most valuable thing in the world. He can see his new baby sister’s tiny, narrow face through the only gap, pink tongue just barely poking out from between soft baby lips. Matt adjusts her so that she can see the sunset too, even though her eyes are squeezed shut and his research suggests that babies this young can’t really see anything. The first stars of evening begin to appear, and Matt vows that one day he’ll see them up close and personal. “And you’ll come with me, huh, Katie?” She gurgles softly in response.

Katie Holt is five years old, sprinting through the dewy grass of her yard, calling to her big brother to catch her. She nearly trips on a tree root in the low light, and Matt nearly trips catching her, arms full of complicated equipment. They burst out of the thin tree line surrounding their house onto the bluff just as the sun is setting, dying the sky a myriad of roses and oranges and golds. Katie swings her legs over the edge of the cliff as Matt sets up the telescope and the opens the star chart program on his computer. She watches as the sun sinks slowly into the horizon and the first stars begins to appear, and she chants her wish on the first thing she sees even as Matt corrects her that “It’s Venus, Pidge.” She sticks her tongue out at him and returns her eyes to the cosmos.

Katie pulls her knees up to her chest and huddles against the chimney. Her mother would probably kill her if she knew about this, but Katie doesn’t care. The stupid kids in her class laughed at her for knowing about the advancement in data storage, and even though Matt’s news of getting into the Garrison cheered her up, their rejection burns like the fiery colors in sunset sky. Later on, Matt will climb onto the roof with her, pull out his computer and tell her about the code he and their father wrote, tell her all about the mission of the Garrison in space and how he might be the first person to meet aliens. But for now, it is only Katie, pressing her back against the chimney, watching the sun sink out of view and wishing that she could have done that in class earlier.

Katie forces the tears from her eyes, allowing herself five seconds to scrub at her eyes with the heels of her palms before she smacks her hands against her cheeks. Matt wouldn’t cry in her position. Matt never cries; he’s told her multiple times that if you can’t science your way out of a problem, try bullshitting your way out and see how it goes. She’ll need science and bullshit and the luck of the gods if she wants to get through the Garrison without Iverson kicking her out again, but there’s no choice. She won’t stop until she finds Matt and Dad, and she’ll bring them back no matter what. Katie lets her worry and fear and sadness slip away with the sun, replaced with cold, hard determination, a little bit of anger, and the moniker Pidge Gunderson. Hopefully Matt’s nickname will help her follow in his footsteps, through the Garrison and all the way to space.

Pidge and Matt huddle together in the wake of Naxzela, his arm around her shoulders and her head pressed into his chest. They curl around each other on a single small chair, watching out the window as a star slowly hides behind the planet they’re orbiting. Sunsets from space are infinitely cooler than sunsets on earth, even when they’re both shaking like leaves and clinging to each other like the world’s about to end.

And it was, for a while there.

“Every time the sun set while you were gone, I waited for the stars to show up so I could yell at them to give you back,” Pidge murmurs. “And if anything had happened to you here, I would’ve yelled at them forever." 

“If you had died on that planet, I would scream into space forever,” Matt responds, gently stroking her hair. “I could never forgive myself for dragging my baby sister into space only to get her killed.”

They sit there together, watching an alien planet’s sun set slowly, and that’s where Lance finds them the next morning, exhausted against each other. He smiles, takes a picture to send to them later, and leaves to find some breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my favorite relationship in all of vld (platonic or romantic) besides maybe keith and pidge being space bros and you can quote me on that.


	5. day five: a n i n t e r e s t i n g t e x t u r e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day five: an interesting texture  
> lance goes looking for his jacket. he finds more than he bargained for.

Lance kicks a pile of wires and mechanical junk onto the ground and groans. Pidge throws a shoe at him without even looking up from the computer. “That was unnecessary,” she complains. “Now I have to go through and reorganize everything!”

Lance looks around the room, one eyebrow raised at the haphazard towers of junk, but he doesn’t say anything. Pidge’s aim is scarily good, even when she isn’t paying attention; it’s probably a result of fighting with a ranged weapon. “Why are you in here, anyway. What are you looking for?”

“My jacket!” he snaps. “Someone took it from my room, and I have no idea where it is! It’s cold as hell on this spaceship! I have no idea where it is and I need my coat back.”

“Have you tried the laundry chute,” Pidge says.

"I don’t send my jacket down the laundry chute, Pidge! It’s a delicate lady and must be hand-washed with special attention to detail. I have to find her before someone makes a mistake and she’s irreparably damaged!”

“Have you tried Keith’s room.”

“No, of course not, why the fuck would my jacket be in fucking _Keith’s_ room, Pidge, what the quiznak? Don’t make shitty jokes like that.”

“I’m telling you, go look in Keith’s room. I’ll give you twenty-to-one odds that it’s there.”

Lance rolls his eyes and huffs out of Pidge’s room. If she isn’t going to help him, he might as well keep looking. Even as he treks through the castle, Pidge’s words ring in his mind: _I’ll give you twenty-to-one odds that it’s there_. He’s never been one to back away from a challenge, so he turns his feet (against his better judgement) and heads for Keith’s quarters.

No light seeps from below the door, but it slides open easily, meaning that Keith can’t be too far. There’s a lump of blanket in the middle of the bed, and Lance is tempted to just turn around and leave, but he thinks he sees a sleeve of his coat. He slowly creeps closer, closer, closer, and then he sees what’s in the bed.

Keith is tucked into a neat little ball, face pillowed against Lance’s jacket, wrapped in mountains of blankets. His mouth is open, soft breaths flowing effortlessly in and out. His hand is clenched in a fist around the hood, and Lance is so shocked that he can barely remember the reason he’s here. 

He grabs the jacket carefully and begins to gently tug and work at the jacket. Every time Keith shifts, even slightly, Lance freezes, and under his breath he begins to hum the softest lullaby he knows, the lullaby he used to sing to his younger sisters when they were sleepless. Keith shifts slightly in his sleep, but he never wakes up.

Lance finally manages to extricate his jacket from Keith’s bedpile, and just as he’s leaving, Keith sits up with the whoosh of the doors, rubbing groggily at his eyes. “Mmm . . . Lance? What’re y’doin here?” 

“Oh, Keith! Well, I, uh, I just wanted to – uh, um, I wanna . . .”

“Yeah?” Keith yawns, and it’s adorable, his tongue poking out of his mouth adorably as he carefully rubs a fist against his eye. Lance thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can see a few of Keith’s teeth are sharper now, like a canine’s incisors. 

(Or a Galra’s fangs, he won’t let himself think.)

“Why were you sleeping with my jacket, Keith, what the quiznak?”

“Oh, that.” Keith is clearly still not awake, all slurred consonants and half-open eyes and tousled bedhead and soft, sleepy confusion. “I needed a pillow, since most of ours were destroyed when you guys were throwing them at me, and I like the way your jacket feels. It’s soft against my face, but not too soft, and not too puffy, either. Sorry. I was gonna return it when I woke up, I didn’t think you were going to come looking for it this soon.”

Lance smiles, all soft edges and gentle curves, and says, “Well, I can’t really deny you a good night’s rest, can I?”

He crosses the room slowly, passes the jacket back to Keith, and gently presses his forehead against the top of Keith’s head. “And while we’re talking about nice textures, I really like your hair.”

“What?”

“It’s not rough, or coarse. It’s fine and thick and soft, and I really like the way it feels. It flows, like water, and it’s smooth like silk, and I really really like it. even though it’s a weird, gross mullet, it’s surprisingly clean.”

Keith pulls Lance down onto the bed, drops his head into Lance’s lap, and pulls Lance’s hands into his hair. “Stay, then. I’m not in any hurry to see you leave.”

Lance is stunned for a moment, but then he smiles, softly, and slides his fingers into Keith’s hair. He’s not one to deny someone something that they’ve asked of him, even something as strange as this. He lets the soft texture of Keith’s hair against his fingers and the weight of Keith’s head in his lap and the warmth of this quiet, dark room all around him wrap around him, and he’s peaceful for the first time since they came to space.

Then he remembers taking Pidge's odds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY IF THIS SUCKS FINALS HELL HAS DESCENDED UPON ME LOVE YOU ALL <3


	6. day 6: a f r i e n d

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 6: a friend  
> video game shenanigans with the galaxy garrison trio + matt holt

“WHAT TIME IS IT, MOTHERFU –”

“LANCE!!!”

Lance dodges under Keith’s punch and Shiro’s disapproving glare to high-five Matt and Pidge. They both respond, even though Matt has to juggle the massive pile of technology and cables in his arms.

“SHOW TIME SHOW TIME!” Pidge yells. 

“WHAAAAT!” Matt responds, and they all sprint through the hallways chanting videogame taglines even as they almost plow over Allura, Coran, and Keith (all on separate occasions, the latter just barely managing to save Lance from an embarrassing faceplant). Matt and Pidge wire the game console like it’s second nature, competing to see who can do it faster. Pidge wins, even though she’s reciting pi in binary as fast as she can, and Lance doesn’t know a single digit of binary but from the jaw-dropped shock on Matt’s face she’s clearly correct.

They’ve just hooked up the controls when the door whooshes open, and Hunk struts in carrying massive trays heaped with steaming food. “Hey, guys! Ready for Garrison Night?”

Garrison Night was Lance’s idea, based on what he and Hunk used to do with their free time at the Galaxy Garrison. They’d hook Lance’s totally illegal game system up to their totally legal computers, plug in the headphones, and binge video games from sunset until well past sunrise. Hunk would steal food from the commissary and create a veritable feast using only their room’s microwave and some complicated solar oven he rigged from spare parts. _The best stress relief in the business_ , Lance used to say, even when he was visibly vibrating from caffeine-sugar-overload-induced sleep deprivation. 

As soon as they got to space, Lance immediately tried to start it up again. Shiro and Allura were too focused on Voltron to think about it, Keith was training at all hours of the day and night, and Pidge was holed up in the lab with Hunk twenty-four hours a day, barring Hunk cooking, missions, and mandatory training sessions.

Matt, however, was different; despite his initial annoyance due to the Allura situation™, Lance warmed to Pidge’s older brother like they’d been friends for years. Matt supported Garrison Night, dragging his sister and Hunk on board. And it’s nice, knowing there’s one sacred night where they don’t have to be the defenders of the universe.

Lance may miss earth like hell, but he didn’t have many friends there. The problem with having an odd number of kids in a family is that they all pair off, leaving one lonely little wheel who talks too fast and moves too much and can’t stay on a conversation topic for longer than fifteen seconds and who sometimes gets terrified of nothing and shuts down for hours and hours on end. 

Here, in space, he has Hunk, who can make the most amazing comfort food out of weird space nothingness and gives exactly the tight, bone-crushing hugs Lance needs when the anxiety spiral tightens like a noose around his neck and his brain shuts off except for terror coursing through his veins like lightning. He has Pidge, who’ll put him to work with rote tasks that let him keep his nervous hands busy and listen to him ramble endlessly while she tweaks her machines or her programming, never judging, never complaining, because she’ll never admit it but the silence of the lab gets to her too, sometimes. He has Matt, who’s seen so much hell out here but still managed to find his baby sister, who’ll tell stories of the crazy things he and Shiro did at the Galaxy Garrison to help drown out Lance’s thoughts and teach him seemingly simple games that really take so much brainpower he doesn’t have the thought energy left to be nervous. 

Even when they kick his ass for five hours straight at pirated space video games and eat all the pizza except the kind with that shitty space pineapple he absolutely despises, they’re the best friends he’s ever had, and Lance wouldn’t trade these people for staying on earth any day.

Because friends are one thing, but these people, they’re a family. His family. A family he built and chose and loves, that chose and loves him back. Lance can’t believe how lucky he is, even as Pidge kicks his avatar off the screen and into the abyss for the twelfth time in a row.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a firm believer in found families and also i love lance so y'all can F I G H T M E  
> sorry if this sucks finals are upon me and i'm sorry this is low quality i love y'all <3


	7. day 7: t h e m o r n i n g

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 7: the morning  
> some paladins are morning people. some are not.

Periodically, an alarm will go off through the castle – not the Galra-are-attacking-time-to-defend-the-universe alarm, but an every-twenty-four-hours-so-you-keep-track-of-time alarm. It signifies the equivalent of morning. 

Lance is up well before the alarm, performing his facial skin care routine. He washes it with water and soft rags, then with the space equivalent of face cleanser. He pads his face down with oil-absorbing cloth, rubs in moisturizer, and carefully wipes down his neck and behind his ears. He combs out his hair carefully, once with a normal comb and once with the comb soaked in water. Lance goes through the entire skincare routine his sisters taught him, and most mornings he manages not to cry remembering the family he lost. 

He passes Allura in the hallways, sometimes, her hair a puffy, frilly mess of untamed tresses as she shambles along, usually with the mice nesting somewhere at the crown of her head. Sometimes he sees Coran, eyes baggy, his very moustache in disheveled shambles even as he drags a hand along the wall for balance. 

Shiro, whenever Lance sees him, is always awake, but painfully so, like he’s running on fumes and gasoline.  His human hand has an insatiable twitch, his index finger squeezing rapidly as though it’s on the trigger of a weapon, and his cyber prosthetic will occasionally jolt as though electricity is shocking through it. The PTSD never really gets any easier, Lance knows, and he does his best to very gently pat Shiro’s shoulder sympathetically.

Pidge is always surrounded by a flock of robots, some of which are supporting her as she scrambles through the hallways. She’s usually typing furiously on her computer or swiping at schematics on her tablet or flicking her gaze rapidly between twelve different holoscreens. Lance usually pushes her in the right direction when she comes dangerously close to veering into something, and she barely acknowledges him but it’s normal at this point.

Keith’s entire body is soaked in sweat, hair damp and limp against his neck and clothes almost dripping. His bayard hangs at his side, still a sword but barely. Sometimes his hair is tied up into a little ponytail that makes Lance’s heart skip several fucking beats every time he sees it. Keith is always flush in the face, usually trying to mop sweat from his eyes, and he smiles at Lance when he stumbles past and then suddenly Lance can’t breathe. His chest seizes and his heart shakes and everything spins a little bit, and he’s on completely dry land but he’s drowning.

The only person he can count on reliably seeing in the mornings is Hunk, in the kitchen making breakfast. Lance will sit on the counter and swing his feet lightly, heals clicking against the sharp space chrome of the countertop. Sometimes he taste-tests Hunk’s new recipes, sometimes he steals batter from tried-and-true recipes and Hunk tries to brain him with a whisk. It’s a strange morning routine, even more so when the rest of the team finally shuffles in to breakfast. They’re usually in a haphazard mishmash of paladin armor and casual clothes, and sometimes someone (usually Pidge, eyes blurry and unfocused from staring at computer screens for hours on end) will face-plant into their space pancakes or space oatmeal or space whatever.

It reminds Lance of home, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY FINALS SUCK I SUCK I'M TRYIN' ME BEST HERE LOVES  
> STILL THE SEVENTH WHERE I LIVE


	8. day 8: t h e e v e n i n g

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 8: the evening   
> keith is a night owl.

Keith has never been much of a sleeper.

He truly embodies the phrase “Sleep is for the weak”, despite his best efforts to the contrary. His father used to engage in sleep deprivation due to his paranoia, and Keith did what he does best: he adapted. He can run on four hours of sleep the way most people can run on ten, and it’s probably not healthy but it’s the way he’s adapted to living.

When everyone sleeps, Keith remains awake, fighting robots deep into the endless dark void of night that is space. He sets the level low, as low as low can go, and activates twenty robots at once. He fights them off in droves – sometimes he fights blindfolded, sometimes he uses his weaker hand, sometimes he uses only his knife. Sometimes he dual-wields, sometimes he lets the lasers blast the hell out of the floor for an added challenge.

Once all the robots lay in sparking, smoldering pieces on the floor, he shuffles them into a heap and summons some more and slashes them to pieces. He chants his frustrations under his breath, his sorrows and anguishes and angers and heartbreaks, and he manifests his emotional turmoil as he trains like tomorrow will never arrive.

He only lets himself train for half of the night. There’s a timer rigged in the control box, so that the entire training deck will slow and turn itself off. Keith wipes the ashes off his knife and sheathes it, allows his bayard to retract into a usable form. He makes his way quietly through the castle hallways, keeping to the most unused corridors.

Sometimes he sees Lance, and then he knows he’s been awake until the castle’s version of morning. Lance is always brimming with energy, glowing with happiness and pride and power, a power that Keith will never possess. Keith can’t walk into a room and instantly connect with everyone there. He’ll never have Lance’s extroversion, Lance’s people person power, and he’s so much worse off for it. Because Keith can fight – Keith can use blades like no one else can, he’s well above average and hand-to-hand combat and he’s been hailed as the best pilot of his generation – but put him in a room with another person and ask him to carry a conversation, and they’ll end up fighting. Keith doesn’t want to fight like that. He knows he’ll lose, and he’ll hurt the other person along the way in ways that they won’t recover from in a simple healing pod.

Keith avoids as many other people on the ship as possible to get to the little nook he has set up, a room in the castle whose walls are nothing but huge, gaping windows. He has blankets and pillows there, and a little notebook with charcoal pens that he hides in a secret place, behind an ordinary-looking wall display. 

Here, he sits and charts the stars.

It’s reminiscent of his time in the desert, when he’d sit on the roof and watch the Milky Way spiral by. The stars here are different, and Keith can draw his own constellations. He likes it, that way. He charts the stars and plots them out, and names them for the people he loves. The same two constellations never appear, night after night, but Keith plots them and writes them down, night after night, because they will not be here forever, and maybe someday, when the space archaeologists discover the ruins of this ship, they will find his notebook, and they will know what mattered to at least one paladin.

There’s a lioness constellation, for his lovely lady Red but also for Black. He has constellations for Shiro and Hunk and Lance and Pidge, for Allura and Coran and Voltron, and he has dozens of constellations for Lance. They’re all sectioned off neatly with sticky tabs and color-coded.

Keith charts stars until the morning alarm blares, and he lets the darkness of space distract him from the darkness lingering around the corners of his mind.

It almost always works.

Inevitably, the metaphorical sun will rise, and Keith will see his teammates do stupid things over breakfast, and he’ll watch Lance’s smile shine in the strange metallic lighting of the kitchen, and he’ll forget the way the night feels.

It almost always works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALS ARE A BITCH AND I HATE EVERYTHING KEITH DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT I GAVE HIM HERE I AM SORRY I LOVE YOU ALL <3


	9. day 9: s o m e t h i n g o l d

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 9: something old   
> the paladins revive an altean birthday tradition

“That sounds delightful!” Allura laughs. “Is it a type of training?”

“No, it’s a party game!” Lance says. “You hang them from the ceiling and hit them with sticks until candy and treats fall out!”

Allura looks thoughtful now, and perhaps a little bit sad. “These were birthday traditions?”

“Yes,” Hunk answers. “Did you guys have any Altean birthday traditions?”

“Well, there were regular traditions, I suppose, but the royal family always held tea ceremonies.” 

“Tea ceremonies?” 

“Yes, they were small, private affairs. Just me and Mother and Father, and Coran, usually. We had juniberry tea, made with the petals of the flowers, and my favorite sweets, and we dressed in ancient Altean finery. They weren’t practical clothes by any means, and the entire thing was really just a dress-up game, but it was fun. Those are some of my most precious memories. It was lovely, you know? For those few hours, we weren’t the royal family of Altea. We were two parents and a daughter, having a celebration.” 

Allura’s face has grown distant, and her eyes are misty. No one comments on it, and she dabs at them briefly before she quietly sweeps out of the room. 

“When even is her birthday?” Pidge wonders. “Do Alteans have the same calendar system we do? It’s been ten thousand years since the fall of Altea, probably more. Do we even have a chance of finding out when it might be?”

“We probably can’t know for certain when her birthday actually is, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it,” Lance says firmly. “I’m sure there are records of Altean traditions somewhere in this castle. Pidge, you find them and translate them. Hunk, you work on recreating the recipes – especially that tea. I’ll look for the clothing with Keith. We’ll give her the birthday celebration she’s missed for ten thousand years.” 

“How old even is she?” Pidge yells. 

They send Shiro to lead a blindfolded Allura into the kitchen, and when she takes it off, they’re all standing around a table. Keith, Lance, and Hunk are all clad in Altean suits that feel smooth against their skin, like silk, like water, like the air itself has been woven into cloth and spun around their bodies. Lance’s is a deep, rich, midnight blue, like the sky at twilight, a stark contrast against Keith’s blaring, bloody crimson. Hunk’s is the deep golden yellow of a summer sunflower, and Shiro’s is a vibrant, shimmering purple with black detail along the collar and lapels. Pidge wears a green dress, brilliant and shining like a million emeralds, with translucent sleeves that reach to her wrists and shimmer all the colors of the rainbow when she moves.

They offer Allura a resplendent dress, ornate blue – lighter than Lance’s, like a summer sky – trimmed with golden adornments. When she comes back in wearing it, Pidge offers Allura a small package wrapped in shining rainbow paper. Inside is a hairpin, shaped to resemble the mountain juniberry flower Allura is so fond of. It glitters with semi-precious stones, and Lance helps the princess affix the ornament in her hair.

They seat themselves around a table, and Hunk brings out the juniberry tea. Allura nearly cries when she takes a sip; she does cry a little when he brings out the cakes and pies. It’s one of the oldest Altean ceremonies, but they create it anew here in this shining kitchen, a piece of history that isn’t theirs by birth but has becomes theirs by adoption. They celebrate a shining storied history that has no citizens left to remember it, none but a princess with a burden too heavy on her shoulders and a caretaker with no one to take care of him. So they take the responsibility of remembering times long past, and they create old ceremonies anew. 

They laugh and joke and place bets on who will spill on their borrowed finery first (it turns out to be Keith, because Lance makes him laughs and he spit-takes everywhere). And for the moment, they are not the defenders of the universe. They are children, celebrating a friend and celebrating life. And that is more than enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finals suuuuuuuck aaaaaaaaass so here's some cute allura paladin fluff


	10. day 10: y o u r h o b b y

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 10: your hobby  
> pidge has always built things for a hobby.

Pidge has never been anything even close to a normal girl. Sometimes she wonders if life would have been different – if life would have been better – if she was.

Most three-year-old girls in her preschool class played with dolls. They dressed them in fancy dresses, played house and kitchen and drew princesses with pink and purple crayons. Pidge drew blueprints and built towering Lego skyscrapers, massive interconnected buildings that filled the entire room and made it impossible for anyone taller than a child to make their way through without tripping.

She took Tinker Toys and built the beginnings of robots. She upgraded toy trucks, cobbled them together to make bigger and better things, and sent them running around the classroom delivering snacks to other people. She read books that troubled the advanced placement seventh graders in first grade, and she built a fortress in the science and engineering sections of the library and camped out during summer break.

Even here, in the Castle of Lions, Pidge retains her camp-out skills. Almost immediately, she abandons the chamber Allura shows to her, taking all of the blankets she can find and building a nest in a corner of the lab. She stacks books and gadgets and gizmos and creates a little mechanical paradise.

Moments of downtime are few and far between when it comes to the defenders of the universe. The Galran Empire pursues them with a ruthless vengeance, and even though Shiro has long since solidified his bond with the Black Lion as stronger than Zarkon’s, it’s a fortuitous day when they don’t have to suit up and save the universe.

Pidge spends her time working on Rover II.

She carefully draws the blueprints, tweaking and retweaking and adjusting the most exact of measurements until she’s absolutely certain that she has them correct. She salvages every single scrap of material she can from the Galran soldiers they fell, refining it and melding it to the skeleton she’s created. She creates the circuitry last; it’s incredibly complicated, and even though she tries to recreate the way Rover was after she modified him, it becomes next to impossible.

Pidge settles for building the Galra wiring the way it’s supposed to be, and then fixing it. When Rover II glows with light, she almost cries. The little triangular robot presses itself into her arms, and she ignores the way it sizzles when a couple of tears land on it.

Her downtime becomes significantly different after she finishes Rover II.

Pidge watches Hunk in the kitchen, sees how shitty the ancient Altean cookware is to him. That night, she and Rover II sneak into the kitchen and repair the old equipment. She sees how the training robots fall like Keith isn’t even trying, and she builds him more impressive robots that take much more effort to destroy, robots that learn and adapt and present him an actual challenge. 

She sees how much Lance misses earth, how it leaves a gaping hole in his entire self that he hides behind false smiles and empty laughter. So she scans photos of his family and home from his phone and creates a projector for him, one that creates life-size replicas of the pictures for him to walk around. He tears up when he sees it, and if he hugs her just a little bit too tightly for a little bit too long, neither of them is telling anyone about it.

She sees how Shiro’s Galra arm troubles him, so she spends night after night studying the schematics until she can disable some of the more unpleasant features and give him some more control. She also builds something that dispenses pleasant aromas in an attempt to soothe him at night, when he can’t sleep and the terrors of Galra prisons torment him as vividly as though he were still there. He thanks her with a soft, pained smile and a hand on her shoulder that’s just a little bit too tight.

Pidge wonders, sometimes, if her life would be better with a more normal hobby. Then she sees the way her friends smile and thank her for the gifts she gives them, she sees the way they walk a little bit lighter, backs a little bit straighter, than they would have otherwise. And she feels better, that way.

Pidge doesn’t know about her life, but she knows that these people’s lives would be far worse off without her in them, and so she regrets nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KLANCE IS COMING I PROMISE. FINALS ARE DRAINING ME AND I'M SORRY. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH <3


	11. day 11: a s m i l e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 11: a smile   
> four times keith was in awe of lance's smile, and one time lance was in awe of keith's

The first time Keith ever sees Lance smile, it’s during their time together at the Galaxy Garrison. Lance isn’t looking at him – he’s all the way across the room, talking to another boy with dark skin and dark hair and a ribbon tied to hold his bangs back. Lance smiles, and the entire room glows. His eyes light up and his mouth is open and his head is tipped back as he laughs, long and loud, and Keith is in love. He’s completely and utterly in love. Despite his best efforts, he never sees Lance again at the Garrison. 

After they rescue Shiro, and they make the most improbable escape in history on Keith’s definitely-way-too-tiny-for-this motorcycle, they all collapse in piles around his little shack. Pidge and Hunk curl together in a corner, Pidge pillowed on Hunk’s chest as he wraps his arms around the tiny communications officer. Shiro is outside, watching the stars, and Keith and Lance are watching each other inside the shack. Keith knows this boy is familiar, but he can’t quite place it – and then he smiles, and it’s gentler this time but his eyes are exactly as bright and his smile exactly as beautiful as that first day at the Galaxy Garrison.

“Thanks, Keith,” Lance says, with soft eyes and soft smile and a soft hand when he reaches and shakes Keith’s. “We never would have made it out of there without you.”

“Yeah. No problem,” Keith mutters, and if he turns his face away to hide the red flush in his cheeks, Lance is none the wiser.

Pidge slices through Shiro’s cuffs and Keith is flying across the room, sliding to his knees next to Lance. Lance is bruised and battered and broken, covered in scratches from bomb debris and bruises from being manhandled by Sendak and his minions and bleeding heavily from a cut above his right eye. There’s all manner of dirt and dried blood crusted on his armor, and Keith wants to cry. Lance’s face is twisted into pain, but when he locks eyes with Keith he smiles, just a little, and grips Keith’s hand tightly.

“We did it,” he rasps, and the smile on his face is aimed at Keith and only Keith. “We are a good team.” Keith smiles back, and rubs his thumb gently over Lance’s hand.

“Yeah.”

When they are all finally reunited after the dreadful wormhole incident, the first thing Lance does is seek out Keith. Keith is staring into the endless depths that are the healing pod containing Shiro, and Lance gently places a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Hey.”

Keith turns around, and the Lance is hugging him. It’s a strange feeling; Keith isn’t used to this much open physical contact and affection. But it’s somehow less strange coming from Lance, whose arms tighten around Keith, one hand braced between his shoulder blades and the other’s fingers wound tightly in Keith’s hair, pressing his face into his shoulder. “I was worried about you,” he mutters. “I didn’t know that I’d ever see you again. I was worried about you.”

Keith’s eyes are wide, body stiff and frozen with shock. Finally, he manages to melt enough into the embrace to return it. “I was worried about you too.”

Lance pulls away, and he smiles, and his eyes are shining like stars and the smile on his face is as brilliant as the brightest of them. Before Keith can stop himself, he leans in and kisses Lance, just once, sweetly. Lance is shocked, and Keith is about to bolt when Lance leans in and kisses him back.

They finally make it back to the castle ship, after that first almost-disastrous mission with Keith as the Black Paladin. Lance pulls Keith aside in the hangar and gently pushes his hair out of his face. “You did good,” he whispers. “You did the best you possibly could.”

Keith looks at Lance, and then he smiles, his eyes glittering, and Lance can feel himself melting against Keith’s warm body. He feels Keith’s mouth against his hair, whispering a soft litany of “thank you”s and “I love you”s, and he can’t stop himself from leaning in and pressing a kiss against that beautiful, beautiful smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE IS YOUR KLANCE YOU HEATHENS ARE YOU HAPPY NOW  
> (jkjkjkjk i love you all i've been waiting for this prompt)   
> FINALS WILL BE OVER SOOOOOOON THANK THE LOOOOOOORD <3<3<3<3


	12. day 12: s o m e t h i n g s y m m e t r i c a l

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 12: something symmetrical  
> keith is annoyed by lance and his stupidly perfect face.

Keith is ready to scream.

He can’t believe how perfect Lance’s face is.

It’s not even perfect because he has nice skin (although he does, the warm tanned brown of someone who’s spent their entire life kissed by the sun, soft and smooth thanks to his religious nightly skincare routine). It’s not even perfect because he has nice hair (although he does, a rich brown that by this point hangs in a small mullet even though he teases Keith about his hair, hair that’s softer than it has any right to be considering that Lance spent his entire life prior to the Galaxy Garrison in the ocean). It’s not even perfect because he has nice eyes (although he does, bright, rich blue, and not the sapphire blue that sappy poets describe but the rich, clear blue of the deepest oceans with flecks of green and gold that you have to look really close for a really long time to see).

Lance’s face is perfectly fucking symmetrical.

Keith is completely in awe of this. Lance’s hair is split perfectly down the middle, eyes exactly the same distance apart and exactly level on either side of his nose. When he smiles, his teeth are straight and perfect and even, and it’s infuriating. Keith cannot believe how perfect Lance’s face is. He knows there must be something that mars this symmetry, but he’s never close enough to Lance to tell. And even when he does get close to Lance, up in his face and personal, noses barely a hair’s breadth apart, they’re too busy fighting for him to look closely.

That changes when they get together. 

Now Keith has all the time in the world to stare lazily at Lance’s face. When they kiss, it’s slow and languid, foreheads gently knocking together, noses brushing softly against each other as their mouths move with all the time in the world. Sometimes, Keith opens his eyes in the middle of kissing, sneaking peeks at Lance’s face, trying to figure out the imperfection (because there has to be one, there’s no way in hell Lance is _that fucking perfect_ ) but he always closes them again far too quickly. He loves Lance too much; he’s been in love with Lance for far too long to even think of paying attention to anything but the buzzing contact high under his skin and the rush of adrenaline singing like lightning in his veins every time they hold hands or kiss or hug or get within fifteen feet of each other.

One morning, Keith wakes up before Lance, which is surprising, with the Blue Paladin cradled in his arms, which is less surprising. Lance’s sleeping face is turned towards him, mouth slightly open, eyes closed, hair flopping softly in his face. Keith just smiles and stares, allowing his eyes to roam around Lance’s face and drink in his features. 

Lance has a sharp chin. He has a long, sharp nose, high sharp cheekbones, and bright blue eyes that shine with the sharp light of tactical intelligence. His gaze pierces through people like a spear, a shaft of holy light that forces the truth out of anyone who falls under its stare. Lance’s entire body is sharp, long, lean limbs with sharp joints and sharp wit and a sharp mind. But here, relaxing in Keith’s arms, with his face softly burying into Keith’s shoulder and his arm thrown lazily around Keith’s waist and his legs twined with Keith’s buried beneath a mound of blankets, he’s not sharp anymore. He’s soft, here, warm and soft and melting like putty in Keith’s arms. 

After about two vargas of Keith sleepily watching Lance’s face, he notices something, something that has him whisper-shrieking “Ah- _hah_!” under his breath. It’s not loud by any stretch, but it’s enough to wake Lance up, eyes blinking open blearily.

“Mmmmm, Keith?”

“I knew your stupid perfect face was too perfect!” Keith says, gently dragging his nose along Lance’s cheek and planting soft kisses against his neck. “I knew it wasn’t totally perfect, I knew it!”

“What?”

“Your stupid symmetrical face, it’s not perfect!” Keith laughs. He carefully drags his nose from the outside corner of Lance’s right eye, down under his eye and up his face to arch across the bridge of his nose, stopping right at the center. “Your freckles only cover half of your face! I didn’t notice before because they’re so faint, but they’re only on one side!”

Lance is laughing too, now, shaking softly with laughter. “Keith, I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s symmetrical too.”

“What?" 

“Yeah,” Lance laughs. “I have a bridge of freckles from one side of my face to the other. I’m pretty sure there’s some on my forehead, too – it’s like a perfect mask.” 

Keith swears under his breath, low and frantic, and Lance just laughs and presses faint kisses to Keith’s face. One on his left cheek, one on his right. One under his left eye, one under his right. One above his left eye, one above his right. One on his forehead, one on the tip of his nose, and finally one on his mouth. It’s short and sweet and everything Keith could ask for in an early-morning kiss. 

“Sorry, babe, but I guess I’m just too perfect for you.” Keith growls, rolls Lance onto his back, and buries his face in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Lance is laughing even as Keith leans down to press a flurry of kisses against his unsuspecting face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost a thousand words of soft pure klance are you people happy now ; ) ; )  
> two finals down, two to go! then it's a month of winter break and i can focus on writing! i have several one-shots lined up as well as a bigger work, so stay tuned!! <3<3


	13. day 13: t h e p e r f e c t p a i r

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 13: the perfect pair   
> the aftermath of the lion switch

Keith buries his head in his hands and tries not to cry.

They just barely made it out of his first mission as leader alive. Pidge and Hunk are in the hangar, tag-teaming machinery repairs, and Keith is huddled in a corner counting every breath he takes in an attempt to calm his racing heart rate and settle his jittering nerves. He’s watching them, watching Hunk and Pidge because they have something he doesn’t, something he never will. 

“Hey, Pidge, do you think we can extend the Green Lion’s cloaking tech to the rest of Voltron?”

“Well, I mean, we could add the cloaking mechanism to each of the other lions,” Pidge muses. “I asked Green’s permission before I modified her, so if we ask the other lions I’m sure we could manage it. We’d have to adapt the cloak to fit the individual specs of each lion but that’s not super difficult.” 

“Would that cloak Voltron, though,” Hunk muses. “I mean, when we’re all fused together into a giant robot. Will we still be cloaked? Does cloaking all the pieces mean that we’ve cloaked the whole?” 

“I’m not sure,” Pidge grunts, pulling a panel off the Green Lion’s exterior and examining the wiring. “Can you pass me the –”

Hunk tosses her a gadget that vaguely resembles a screwdriver before she can finish her sentence, and she smiles at him before jumping straight back into her repairs. “I mean, when we connect a bayard into one lion, Voltron gains a weapon, right?”

“Right, so maybe if we –” Hunk begins. They both look up and make wide-eyed eye contact at the exact same time. 

“ – Copy the insertion mechanism in the Green Lion, we can replicate the cloak over all of Voltron!” they finish, grinning at each other, before disappearing into the Yellow Lion, chattering back and forth in rapid technobabble that, as far as Keith is concerned, is absolutely meaningless.

Keith presses his knees against his chest, and his forehead against his knees, and huddles under the Red Lion. He can’t feel her presence as clearly as he used to; she’s still there, of course, lingering in the back of his mind with a comforting purr, but the predominant lion in his mind is the Black Lion, now, and she’s nowhere near as comforting as her smaller, lighter sister. She’s serious, and seriously powerful, but Keith can’t imagine ever having the same bond with her as he does – did – with Red. They were the perfect pair, and he doesn’t think he can ever recover from that.

Pidge and Hunk still have their original lions, but it’s more than that. They have each other, a perfect tandem of technology and mechanical expertise, and that’s a bond Keith can never hope to replicate.

Someone drops down next to him, and for a moment Keith is ready to scream bloody murder, but then it turns out to be just Lance, pressing himself against Keith’s side and leaning his head on Keith’s shoulder. Lance has always been one for invasion of personal space, and Keith is all about personal space but recently he’s found he doesn’t mind as much when it’s Lance in the picture. 

“What are you doin’ hanging out under my lion, leader?”

“I miss her,” Keith whispers, and it’s more honest than he wanted to be but Lance’s playful demeanor sobers up immediately. “I miss Red. Black’s exciting, and all, but she’s not Red. I knew exactly how to fly her, it was like – like second nature, or something. But Black’s a lot different, and that makes me feel weak. I don’t like that feeling.”

“I know,” Lance says, and Keith is about to protest but then Lance continues, “It was the worst feeling in the world when Blue shut me out.” And then Keith remembers, with startling clarity, that he’s not the only one whose lion has rejected them today. “We had such a special bond, y’know? We were so close to each other, and then she just decided I wasn’t worthy anymore. We were –”

“The perfect pair,” Keith finishes, lamely, and Lance laughs once, a short, dry, bitter bark, before making a slightly watery eye contact with Keith.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Why did this have to happen,” Keith asks. “Why did Shiro have to go missing, why did he have to name me as his successor, why did we have to switch lions, why did Lotor have to come swanning in and fuck everything up, why, why, why –” 

“Hey, Keith,” Lance says.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not okay, right now. Everything is one big shit show and it seems like we’re all royally fucked. But it will be okay. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t matter if we switch lions, Keith. I know we were happy with our previous partners, but it’s not the end of the world. Because we are a perfect pair, Keith, and we’re still here, right? You’re a leader, and you’re not the same leader as Shiro was but that’s okay, because you don’t have to be! And I’m right by your side, just like I always have been, just like I always will be. I’m your right-hand man, Keith. I’m here to make sure that even when you screw up – because you will screw up, Keith, everyone screws up sooner or later – you don’t give up on yourself. You’re not a failure, Keith. And one failure isn’t the end of the world. We’re all still alive. It’s not the end of the world, or the end of us.” 

Lance picks his head up and pulls Keith’s onto his shoulder, pressing a firm kiss to the top of his head. “We’re the most perfect pair, babe, and we’re still here! It’s all gonna be ok, alright? It’s all gonna be okay.”

Keith presses his head more firmly into the warmth of Lance’s body, feels Lance’s arms settle around him, and does his damnedest to believe that Lance is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because the show didn't really give us this scene, and it's an important scene, and also SOFT KLANCE : )  
> i hope you guys like it <3<3


	14. day 14: h o w y o u r e l a x

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 14: how you relax  
> hunk stress bakes after a mission

Hunk throws his helmet with as much force as he can across the room, ignoring the frightened, concerned looks from other paladins as he strips off the rest of his armor and throws it with equal force onto the hangar floor. “Hunk?” Allura asks. “Is everything –”

“nnnnnNOPE, no no-no-no no no, nopity nopity NOPE!” Hunk shouts, voice as chipper as he can possibly make it. “Everything is not all right and I am not alright and there’s a very high possibility that nothing will ever be all right ever again! So if everyone will kindly excuse me, I am going to go stress-bake my way out of this bullshit and I will reconvene with you all when my hands are full of yummy things instead of an urge to punch my way through seventeen walls. Okay? Okay!”

Hunk’s feet pound against the hallway floor as he sprints through the castle, and he can’t hear anyone else following him which he takes as a good sign. He’s struggling to maintain a grip on his anger, on his anxiety, on his mind itself.

When Hunk reaches the kitchen, he slams the door closed, barricading it after locking it. Pidge can hack his encryption in about twenty minutes (seventeen if she really tries), but she won’t, not after what happened in the hangar. Lance, too, might be able to guess Hunk’s passcode, if he puts his mind to it, but again, he probably won’t. Hunk takes a deep breath, unties the orange ribbon that holds his bangs back, and pushes his fingers through sweat-matted hair before retying the headband and breaking out the baking supplies.

At this point, the conversions are second nature to him, and it takes no effort to translate the weird space ingredients into their earth equivalents anymore. It’s useful, when the thoughts race like runaway horses and his heart beats like a jackhammer against his rib cage, to focus on something that’s rote and mindless but still takes effort to do well.

Back on earth, Hunk’s mother attempted to buy him an electric mixer plenty of times – an egg beater at the very least – and he refused every single time. He likes the feeling of working his bakes with his hands; likes the feeling of slamming bread dough down on the table to knead it, the pressure of a rolling pin in his hands as he encases butter in sheets of puff pastry, the soft crumble of shortbread dough coming together beneath his fingers, the slight, burning strain in his arm when he whisks meringue into peaks. Hunk enjoys the feeling of creating with his hands and his hands alone, not relying on machinery to do his job for him. 

He retreats into that solace now, remembering all the times when he’d come home from school bruised or bloodied after defending Lance from some racist assholes to find his mother, offering him a whisk and a stool. Baking, even now, remains his one steadfast link to the family he left behind on earth. And sometimes Hunk regrets venturing into space. He regrets following Lance to the Garrison, he regrets sneaking out with him to save Shiro, he regrets climbing into the Blue Lion when they found it, he regrets almost all of his life choices up to this point.

Because Hunk enjoys being a hero, he really does. He likes traveling around the galaxy, meeting new people, he likes saving people. But there’s only so much heartbreak he can take.

Just today, they’d interrupted a skirmish between two warring tribes on a planet, and Allura had used her diplomacy skills (truly the most magical thing she possesses, as far as Hunk is concerned) to begin working out a peace between the two factions. But they hadn’t gotten there soon enough to prevent all the crossfire, and Hunk had found two parents, prone on the floor in their own house, with a small body cradled between them, a still-living, now-orphaned alien child.

He still sees them when he closes his eyes.

Hunk pulls a tray of baked goods out of the oven and slides another one in like clockwork. The doors whizz open, and he turns to see not Pidge with her laptop or Lance with the code but Keith, his knife sticking out of the sparking control panel. “Hunk,” he says. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s okay to be upset about it, you know. It’s okay to not be okay.”

“I know,” Hunk says, but it feels like a lie even as he says it. Keith crosses the floor slowly, with each step feeling purposeful and sure.

“Hunk,” Keith says, placing a hand on Hunk’s upper arm. “It’s okay to not be okay.”

Hunk lowers his head, and Keith carefully wraps an arm around him. Hunk lets himself collapse into Keith, like a dying star, and Keith gently strokes the back of his head as Hunk shudders through an anxiety attack.

When the cookies finish, Keith pulls them out of the oven, and then he helps Hunk cart his baked goods into the lounge, where the rest of the team gently convey some physical reassurance to Hunk before curling on the couch in one big paladin cuddle pile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> paladin cuddle pile for the win   
> FINALS ARE OOOOVEEEER bless the lord


	15. day 15: t r e a t y o u r s e l f

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 15: treat yourself  
> lance finally gets the paladins of voltron to relax

“I hate to be the person to question you – well, actually, no I don’t, since no one else will – but is this actually really necessary?” Pidge asks. Lance looks up from the massive bowl of face cream he’s stirring and debates the merits of stringing Pidge up with her own bayard and letting everyone else enjoy themselves. 

“Yes, Pidge, of course it’s necessary!” he chirps instead. “We have to relax every once in a while, you know? It’ll be fun!”

“I hate to disagree with you,” Keith says, “but I have to agree with Pidge. Is this something we must do?”

Lance forces the smile to remain on his face, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders. “Listen, guys. Shiro is missing. Shiro has _been_ missing. For several days. We are all stressing ourselves sick saving the world and worrying about Shiro and honestly, that’s not healthy. I don’t suppose you know what a psychophysiological illness is, Keith?” 

“Um –” 

“It’s an illness that appears to have no physical cause but which, in reality, results from extreme mental duress.” Lance levels his best glare on Keith, eyes an icy steel blue, and attempts to shame their new leader into shutting up and sitting down. “I used to suffer from psychophysiological illnesses as a child. Let me inform you of a thing, man: They. Fucking. Suck. They _fucking_ suck, okay? And I’ll be damned if I let anyone else suffer from them while I’m here to make sure that they don’t, alright? So sit down, shut up, and let me help you treat yourselves. I can and will make this mandatory.”

“You’re not team leader,” Pidge snipes. 

“Technically, I am,” Keith says slowly, and Lance and Pidge stop bickering to look at him hesitantly. “And I think Lance is right, actually. We’re doing this. And it is mandatory. I’ve decided.”

Lance fistpumps in victory and Pidge groans exaggeratedly, but she doesn’t leave. Lance and Hunk finish setting up the supplies, and then the party really begins.

Twenty-five minutes in, Lance is laughing as he throws the Altean equivalent of a cucumber at Keith, who flails his knife through the air in seemingly random patterns that somehow result in perfectly sliced, perfectly evenly thick slices on a plate in Hunk’s hands. All four of them, plus Allura, have Lance’s homemade face cream smeared across their faces, towels wrapped around freshly washed hair, lounging in their respective lion’s colored robes. Allura and Hunk press slices of the cucumber against their eyes and recline on the couch, feet propped up, faces serene.

“Still think this was a waste of time?” Lance asks. Pidge shakes her head from her comfortable perch on the back of the couch. “See, I told you. And now, WE COMMENCE!”

“We commence with what, exactly?” Keith asks, hesitant.

“THE EPIC VIDEO GAME TOURNAMENT OF – shit, Allura, what space year is it!”

“I do not know, but when I entered the cryopod the Altean year was 4087,” she says, with a tinge of wistfulness in her tone. 

“THE EPIC VIDEO GAME TOURNAMENT OF 14087!” he shouts. “I’m definitely going to lose to Pidge, but at least I can have the satisfaction of finally beating you, Keith!” 

Approximately four hours, seventeen rounds, and nine ten-minutes-each uninterrupted strings of curse words from Lance, the score sits with Pidge at eleven wins and Keith and Lance tied with three each. Whoever wins the current head-to-head showdown gets the spoils and the glory, and Lance refuses to be beaten. 

“Kiss my well-toned ass, mullethead!” he laughs. 

“I’ll kiss whatever body part you desire,” Keith rasps, voice husky and low in the way that makes a shudder course through Lance’s whole body, ice cascading down his spine and through every vein in his body. “Just as soon as I kick your beautiful, amazing, well-defined ass at this game.” 

Pidge wolf whistles from the back of the couch. She’s wearing the victory crown Hunk and Allura made at some point during the seventh round and snacking on the pastries they whipped up sometime during the ninth. Hunk and Allura are both laughing their asses off at Lance’s flustered, flushed expression. Rather than allow himself to get flustered by Keith’s taunt, he grits his teeth and throws himself whole-heartedly into kicking his ass.

And he does, too; by some miracle of providence, Lance pulls off a critical hit at the very last second and wins the second-place prize of his boyfriend tackling him to the floor, pinning his wrists above his head with one hand and staring at him with an uncharacteristic fire burning in his eyes.

“You poke your tongue out of the corner of your mouth when you concentrate really hard,” Keith growls, and Lance can hear Pidge, Hunk, and Allura moving out of the room in the most conspicuously inconspicuous manner possible. “It’s so damn distracting, you know?”

Lance smiles, his typical, flirtatious smile, and says, voice light and taunting, “What are you gonna do about it, mullet head?”

Keith shoves his own tongue into Lance’s mouth in reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i regret nothing ;);)   
> psychophysiological illness is real and it sucks. personal experience speaking here, kiddos. take care of yourselves. stay safe. i love y'all <3<3


	16. day 16: s o m e t h i n g f u n n y

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 16: something funny  
> matt tells pidge how he and shiro got together

Pidge dramatically wilts over the back of the couch, forehead pressing against the couch cushions right next to Matt, who’s flicking through a tablet with an expression of intense, disinterested boredom. “I am so dooooooooooone with this,” she whines. “I thought coming to space was gonna be _fun_ , and yet here I am dying of _boredom_ on a _space couch_.”

“I know,” Matt says, “and I was initially so excited about coming to space! Of course, the whole Galran capture thing derailed that train within seventeen fuckin’ seconds, but y’know. Whatever time frame works for you.”

“So the question is, what do we _do_?” Pidge asks. “I’ve finally found you. I refuse to sit around and be consumed by boredom. Entertain me, peasant.”

“Well,” Matt drawls, stretching out the e and rolling the l’s across his tongue, “I know what we could do.”

“I know that tone of voice,” Pidge singsongs, rolling over to make eye contact with her brother. 

“Oh, do you?” he says, coy and suave.

“That, my dear brother, is the tone of Holt family shenaniganery afoot,” Pidge says. “And I am always down for Holt family shenaniganery. So spill it.” 

“Well, Shiro and I did a lot of things at the Galaxy Garrison, Pidge, and I’m not gonna tell you about all of them, because most of them involved questionable legality.” Pidge snorts, flopping onto the couch fully. “Stop _laughing_ at me, Pidge, I’m telling you the truth! It doesn’t matter, anyway, because I’m telling you about this in strictest confidence . . . but we did almost get kicked out of the Galaxy Garrison. Once.” 

“Geez, Matt, what did you _do_?” Pidge asks, eyes wide with liquid curiosity. 

“Oh, it was spectacular. We singlehandedly created the biggest fucking scene in the history of the Galaxy Garrison. If it hadn’t been Shiro and I, we probably would have been kicked out. We also may have indirectly taken about, oh, fifteen years off of Iverson’s life span? It was worth it, though, because he’s a bigoted dickweed.” 

“What. Did. You. Guys. _DO_?!” Pidge grits out.

Matt grins. “Well, you know how the army had that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when it came to homosexuals?”

“Sadly.”

“Well, Iverson called this meeting of the entire Galaxy Garrison one day. We all thought it was gonna be some big huge DEFCON-level threat, right? Like, this was major-level serious bullshit happening here. He was in his official military dress, we all thought he was gonna tell us that aliens had invaded.” 

“That came a little later,” Pidge laughs, and Matt laughs too, although there’s a haunted shadow in his eyes. “Anyway, what happened?” 

“He told us all that, under no uncertain terms, he disagreed with the army’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy. He told us that the Galaxy Garrison was above such crass measures. That we were _better_ than that.” Matt’s face is a hardened mask of anger. “He told us that any homosexuals within the ranks of the Galaxy Garrison would not be tolerated. If they attempted to make their sexualities known to the public, then they would be booted from the Garrison.”

“BULLSHIT,” Lance crows, dropping onto the couch. “Iverson always did rub me the wrong way, and now I know why!” 

“Yeah, he’s a jackass,” Matt says. “Anyway, so he was a complete and utter jackass, right? And then, out of nowhere, fucking _Keith Kogane_ –”

“I heard my name and now I’m afraid,” Keith deadpans.

“You should be,” Hunk says. Pidge isn’t really sure when almost the entire team showed up, but they did, and now everyone except Shiro is crowded excitedly around Matt like children with Santa Claus.

“So, Keith Kogane stands up in the middle of this giant crowd of cadets, pushes his way up to the stage, takes the microphone from Iverson, and then says, in the grumpiest, most casual voice you can think of –” 

“ ‘I’m gay. I’m gay as fuck, and anyone that has a problem with that can kiss my ass’,” Shiro says, and somehow he perfectly captures Keith’s exact tone and facial expression and devil-may-care attitude. He leans down, resting his chin on the top of Matt’s head. Matt laughs, reaching a hand up to tilt Shiro’s head to the side so he can kiss his cheek.

“Ever the rebel, even back then, huh, Keith?” Lance laughs. Keith swats at him lightly, and Lance catches his hand, threads their fingers together, and kisses Keith’s knuckles.

“What does this have to do with you guys, though?” Pidge asks.

“Oh, well, as soon as Keith was done talking, Iverson was like, ‘I’mma expel your ass, boy.’ So Shiro and I also climbed on stage, and Shiro said that anyone who had a problem with gay people could take it up with him, and he was pretty terrifying even before the cyborg arm, y’know?”

“And then this rapscallion spun me around, dipped me like a tango dancer, and kissed me full on stage. Not any pansy kiss, either, there was definitely some tongue involved.” Matt wiggles his eyebrows even as Pidge screams in disgust and everyone else averts their eyes, blushing.

“That is hilarious,” Lance guffaws, falling off the couch as he continues to laugh his ass off.

“Well, you know, some things just have to be done,” Matt shrugs, “and correcting Iverson’s delusional beliefs about homosexuals is one of them. And if the process just so happens to land me a cute boyfriend, who am I to complain, am I right?”

Pidge throws a pillow at him when he pulls Shiro in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because honestly, what else were these two going to do  
> don't let anyone diss you for who you are. i will fight them at two am in a denny's parking lot.   
> <3 <3 <3   
> enjoy!!!


	17. day 17: a p a t t e r n

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 17: a pattern   
> allura and lance reminisce about altea

Allura runs her fingers lightly over the patterned wallpaper in the ballroom. It’s a rich blue, with raised golden symbols on it – the Altean royal crest. The ballroom was once the life of the Altean civilization, with splendid, spectacular parties held frequently. Allura walks around the ballroom, fingertips dragging carefully against the walls as she looks for a particular patch.

Lance comes in at one point, but he doesn’t attempt a pickup line. Instead, he curls up on a chair and begins to clean his bayard carefully, an Altean repair tool tucked behind one ear and occasionally clamped in his teeth. Allura steps carefully around the ballroom, trailing her hands across the delicate pattern, and only after a varga has passed does Lance speak up.

“Hey, Princess?”

“Yes, Lance?”

“What are you doing?”

“Oh. I’m looking for a particular patch of wall.”

“I can see that, Princess. But what are you looking for? A secret room?” That’s enough to get a laugh out of her.

“No, Lance. I’m looking for a memory from my childhood.” Lance looks up from where he’s been fiddling with the trigger of his blaster. “I suppose I should tell you.” 

“You don’t have to, you know,” Lance says. “I know how personal your history can be. If you don’t want to tell me, you’re under no obligation to reveal your secrets.” 

“It’s alright,” Allura says, and there’s a short, sharp pang in her heart as she turns her memories towards Altea again. “This story is actually quite amusing. I was merely a child, after all.”

Lance smiles, retracts his bayard, and slips it away into the armor. “Do tell, Princess.”

“Well, it was shortly before a ball of epic proportions was to be held, here in the castle. It was a coming-of-age ceremony for me, a celebration of my readiness to become the heir to the Altean throne. Sadly, I was but a mere child, and wanted no part in such formalities. I was running away from my father, who was attempting to catch me so that I could be dressed in the proper fineries. I ran headfirst into the ballroom, not bothering to look where I was going, and I crashed into a servant carrying a tray full of goblets of juniberry juice. It splashed everywhere, including a massive portion of the wallpaper in this very room. 

“Father would have been furious, had he found out. Coran found me first. He scooped me up and carried me out of the room, delivering me to my father. He took me away and dressed me, and I was petrified all through the remainder of the day that he would find my mistake and I would be in trouble. When we entered the ballroom later that day, my eyes were immediately drawn to the spot on the wall. Yet, miraculously, it was as though nothing had ever happened.”

“Whooaaa,” Lance whispers. Allura smiles.

“Yes. Coran had patched the wallpaper while Father dressed me. To the best of my knowledge, he never found out about it, because Coran lined the pattern up exactly right.” Her fingers brush an uneven seam in the wall, a place where the paper is slightly darker than the surrounding wall, slightly less faded. “And here it is. You can tell how well the job was done because I only found it by feeling for it. Truly, an impressive feat.” 

“You really miss Altea, huh.”

“Yes,” and Allura’s voice is a soft whisper now. “I do indeed. It was a mighty civilization, and it – it was my home. The knowledge that I shall ever see it again, save for dreams and memories, is painful, even now.” 

“Yeah, I’m the same way about Earth,” Lance says. “It might still exist, but the chance of me ever seeing it again is slim to none. And I miss it, a lot. Every day, it feels like my memories get a little fuzzier, a little falser, a little less valid.” 

Allura crosses the room in swift, even strides and hugs Lance. He stiffens in her arms, surprised, but then he hugs her back, and they stand there for a moment, indulging in memories of worlds lost and families left behind but also reveling in new worlds and found families.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this made me a little misty-eyed, ngl   
> give me platonic allurance or give me death, i don't care if you ship it or not these two have the potential for such an epic bromance and i need it <3


	18. day 18: f l o w e r s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 18: flowers  
> keith and lance deal with the loss of shiro - again.

The first time Lance finds Keith curled in a ball on the bridge, staring at the stars with an expression that somehow manages to be pissed off and distraught all at the same time, he sits down next to their unwilling new leader and wraps his arm around his shoulders. Keith is rigid and stiff, but he slowly relaxes, softening into Lance’s touch and leaning into Lance’s side and letting Lance’s voice mutter nonsense words until he falls into an uneasy sleep.

The second time Lance finds Keith curled in a ball on the bridge, he wraps a blanket around his shoulders and leans his head on Keith’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“How do you do it?” Keith whispers. “When he disappeared on Earth, at least I had my project with the Blue Lion to distract me. I could pour all my energy into looking for that, and I didn’t have to think about dealing with the fact that he was –” Keith’s voice breaks, and Lance slides his hand into Keith’s lap. Keith takes it absentmindedly, letting Lance lace their fingers together and squeeze. “That he was . . . gone, y’know?”

“I know,” Lance says.

“Do you, though?” Keith snaps, and he’s angry now. “Do you know what it’s like to have the only person you’ve ever known to be family just – just disappear on you like that?” His voice cracks a little in the middle, and Lance can’t even mock him for it because he’s so clearly torn up. 

“I know more than you think I do,” Lance murmurs. “When I was five, the only person in the whole world that I loved was my older brother. Seriously, man, Andrew was just – incredible, y’know? He was my Shiro. And he got drafted into the military, and he went overseas, and he promised me that he was gonna come back. He gave me his jacket, as a keepsake, said now I knew he was gonna come back so he could get his jacket back.” 

Lance’s entire body tightens. “The next thing I knew, there was a soldier at our doorstep telling us that he was missing in action. He was just – gone. You’re lucky, Keith. You at least found Shiro. I never saw Andrew again.” 

Keith is silent for a long moment. “What did you do?”

“We built an altar in the corner. Sort of like a _Día de los Muertos_ altar, but different. A remembrance shrine, y’know? We filled it with pictures of Andrew, and stuff of his that we had, and it made the loss a little easier knowing that we could go sit there and feel like he was with us. The only thing that didn’t go on the altar –” Lance’s fingers tighten in the sleeves of the jacket he’s wearing “– was this jacket.”

“Do you think we could build one of those for Shiro?" 

Lance smiles, tilts his head up to press a kiss to Keith’s cheek. “Of course.”

They find a quiet room in one of the distant corners of the castle, a small one about the size of a broom closet, maybe slightly bigger. Keith drags in an end table from one of the lounges, Lance gets Allura to show him how to work the alien version of a printer, and they find some candles together. When they finish, the shrine is simple, nothing fancy. It’s a table, covered in a plain white cloth with the Japanese characters for Shiro’s name embroidered in a repeating pattern along the edge by a surprisingly dexterous Lance. There’s a framed photo in the center, with candles in each of the corners. 

Keith spends the most time in there. Lance will accompany him, more often than not, and Keith will tell him stories of Shiro from when they were growing up in the Galaxy Garrison on earth. One day, when they open the door, there are flowers there. 

They’re not real flowers, but synthetic, long, metallic, narrow stalks with oval buds at the end. When Lance touches them, they glow with a soft light, unfurling into blue and yellow blossoms that remind Lance of lilies. There’s a new picture on the altar, as well. It’s a simple photo, framed, of three people standing in front of a Galaxy Garrison spaceship. The man in the middle is the oldest, tall with glasses and distinguished gray hair. There’s a boy on the left dressed in an identical orange-and-white uniform, with a fluff of brown hair and glasses and a devil-may-care smile, throwing up a peace sign. On the right is a slim girl with long brown hair in a purple short-sleeved dress, smirking leaning into her dad’s arm. 

“You don’t think,” Lance starts.

“Pidge,” Keith finishes, letting his fingers skim lightly over the edge of the petals. “I guess, in all of the excitement about losing Shiro, I forgot I’m not the only one to lose family to the Galra.”

“You can be a little short-sighted at times,” Lance teases, “but it’s alright. Pidge is always so determined to find her family and save them from the Galra, it’s really easy to forget that she misses them like hell.”

“Do we talk to her about this?” Keith asks.

“Nah, let’s just – not. If she didn’t ask us about putting that picture and these flowers here, then there’s probably a reason. Let’s just – let it go. Pidge can grieve in her own way. Okay?”

Keith nods, leaning back as Lance wraps his arms around his shoulders. “Okay.”

Periodically, new mechanical flowers appear on the altar. When the candles burn low, new candles appear, modified so that the melting wax is sculpted into a new candle that never runs out. The picture frames are periodically wiped clean of dust, and when hot wax drops onto the table cloth it’s fixed and the candles are outfitted with wax guards before Keith or Lance can stop it. 

They catch Pidge in there once, laying new flowers on the altar. “We knew it was you,” Lance says. Pidge doesn’t stiffen or flinch, just smooths the tablecloth under her flowers with soft, smooth strokes. “You miss them, huh?” 

“Yeah,” she says, soft.

“It’s okay to grieve for them,” Keith says, and he’s not sure he should be doing this, but Lance is smiling softly in the corner of his eye and encouraging him on, so he pushes forward. “Just – don’t shut everyone out while you’re trying to feel better, okay? Because we can help you. We’re grieving too.” 

Pidge smiles, and then she hugs them both, arms wrapped tightly around their waists. Just a quick squeeze, and then she’s pulling away. “That never happened,” she snaps. Lance laughs.

“Sure, Pidge.”

“Seriously, I will _murder_ you if that gets out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you got the camp camp reference at the end with pidge then i love you and you're my favorite  
> for all the langst i think this fandom is missing some quality soft keith angst and i am on a one-woman crusade to right that wrong  
> srsly though i love my boys


	19. day 19: f o o d a n d d r i n k

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 19: something you eat or drink  
> hunk helps lance and the rest of team voltron deal with homesickness

“Man, Hunk, that was delicious!” Lance says, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms above his head. “You’ve outdone yourself again, buddy!”

Hunk laughs, pulling the dirty dishes away from Lance and sliding them into the dish bucket. “Thanks, Lance. You know, that means a lot to me!”

Keith carefully places his plate and utensils in the dish bucket and drops a hand on Hunk’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “It was amazing, Hunk. Thank you.”

Hunk can feel the flush rising to his face; Keith isn’t one to voice his opinions, positive or otherwise, and the smallest of compliments from him means as much as one of Lance’s loud, exuberant comments. “Thanks, Keith!”

“That was spectacular and I am stuffed,” Pidge moans, “and I will now roll my bloated self down to the lab so that I may continue my work.” She pushes out of her chair with a greatly exaggerated amount of effort and fake-stumbles her way through the dining room to the doorway. 

“That was almost as good as my mom’s cooking,” Lance says, and his eyes get this weird sheen on them, just for a moment. Hunk knows that look, knows it far too well since coming to space. At the Galaxy Garrison, Lance’s eyes would occasionally get misty when he spoke of home. He was very close to his family, and Hunk isn’t unaccustomed to seeing him in bouts of homesickness. They’ve become worse since Voltron, longer and more serious, and Hunk knew how to talk Lance into happiness at the Garrison but he feels powerless to help here.

Then the moment shatters, and Lance’s eyes are the same bright, laughing blue they usually are. “Seriously, you could give her a run for her money!” 

“Lance,” Hunk begins.

“No, no, don’t worry about me!” Lance says, and his face is still smiling but his eyes are serious. “Hunk, listen. We both knew that no matter what happened, I was always gonna be homesick. But your cooking helps me forget about that, even for a little while. I know you’re gonna get that inferiority complex thing you always do when someone’s hurting and you feel bad cause you can’t help them, but honestly. There’s not a single person in this universe who could help me feel less homesick, other than my actual family. Trust me, Hunk. No one on this entire ship could help me the way you do.” 

Lance smiles, and it doesn’t completely reach his eyes, but only Hunk would possibly know that. Lance leaves, and Hunk just sweeps all the dishes into the bucket. Even as he’s mindlessly scrubbing food residue off of the plates, his mind is whirling. Lance might say he’s alright, but Hunk knows him too well to ever believe that shenaniganery. He has to do something, he has to help Lance, but he doesn’t know _how_ –

There’s a tinkling noise beneath his fingers, and he looks down to see a plate snapped in pieces. There are fragments in the sink, and a single slice on his left index finger, reaching from the tip all the way to the middle joint. It’s shallow, even though it bleeds a lot, and Hunk hisses a few choice Spanish curse words Lance taught him as he rinses his finger under the stream of water. The faintly pink water swirls down the drain, and Hunk lets his mind turn back to Lance. There has to be something he can do, even as Lance’s words echo in his mind. 

_Your cooking helps me forget about that, even for a little while._

Hunk wraps his finger in white medical tape, and smirks to himself. Suddenly, he knows _exactly_ what to do.

“Hey, Pidge, I have a question for you!” 

“Is it about the cloaking technology, because I swear if you don’t stop asking me mechanical questions while I’m still working on the circuitry side of things I’m going to have Rover II bring me my bayard so I can tase you into oblivion.” 

“No, it’s not about that! I just wanted to know what your favorite food is!” 

Pidge sticks her head out from beneath the Blue Lion, hair an even more disheveled mess than usual, some sort of oil or grease smeared across her forehead. “Is this a trick question,” she deadpans. 

“No!” Hunk snaps. “I just really need to know! For scientific reasons!”

“Fine,” she responds, slithering back under the lion. “I really like roast beef, with gravy and fresh peas and mashed potatoes.” 

Hunk can work with this. He’s going to need some ingredients from Shay, but they’re close enough to the Balmera that a a trip won’t need a wormhole. 

“Hey, Keith! What’s your favorite food?” 

Keith cuts a robot in half. “Is this necessary information?” 

“Yes!”

Keith shrugs. “I don’t know, man, I ate whatever I could find in the desert.” 

“Keith, please, spare me your cryptic cryptid weirdness and just tell me.” 

Keith actually stops at that, turning to look at him with his sword piercing a robot’s chest, raising an eyebrow skeptically at Keith even as the robot sparks and twitches and dies.

“Um . . . well, I – I kind of like chili. No beans, lots of meat, only potatoes and carrots for the vegetables, lots of herbs and spices.” Keith turns away from Hunk and continues to stab his way through an armada of robots.

Hunk can work with this.

He doesn’t say anything to Lance, because he knows Lance’s favorite foods like he knows the back of his hand. He learns about Altean delicacies from Allura and Coran, learns Shiro’s absolute favorite type of authentic Japanese sushi in between a fifteen-minute diatribe (“NONE OF THIS AMERICANIZED BULLSHIT”), and he visits Shay and makes plan 

Approximately two weeks later, he gathers the Paladins of Voltron, Allura, and Coran, in the dining room and grins. “Ladies! Gentlemen! Lance!” 

“Hey!” 

“I present to you, a Hunk Garrett dining feature extraordinaire – Tastes of Home!” 

Hunk brings out a roast meat, slathered in thick, rich sauce, with a soft white vegetable and fresh-looking green side. Pidge laughs, but the second a forkful hits her mouth, there’s something unspoken shimmering behind her glasses.

Hunk brings out a steaming bowl of chili, thickened broth full of meat and bursting with fiery flavor. Keith’s face is carefully schooled and stoic, but he makes eye contact with Hunk and nods, just once, movements a little sharper and jerkier than normal. 

Hunk brings out a wooden plank full of delicately fashioned sashimi, nigiri, and steamed dumplings. Shiro breaks his chopsticks apart and says a traditional Japanese thank you over the meal, head bowed, then looks to Hunk and says it again, a little sharper and clearer, before maneuvering chopsticks even with his mechanical hand more deftly than Hunk could ever manage with his flesh ones.

Hunk brings out a tray of foods with names he can’t even pronounce, and then another, slightly varied. Allura presses her hand against her mouth, eyes watering as she stares at the delicacies of her home world, and Coran just smiles, dabbing at his eyes with a napkin before carefully maneuvering food around his moustache.

Hunk brings out a tray with garlic knots, fresh fish tacos, _tres leches_ cake and pizza with the closest thing to pineapple space has to offer. Lance’s jaw goes slack, his entire face frozen as he looks at the food in front of him, and then he’s standing up so rapidly that his chair falls over with a loud _thunk_ as he sprints to Hunk and flings his arms around his neck.

Hunk hugs Lance back, squeezing just a little more tightly than normal, and pretends that he doesn’t notice the way Lance is shaking. “I know, buddy. I’ve got ya.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we need more hunk content. hunk is a wonderful boy. i love him.   
> LESS THAN A WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS WHAT WHAAAAAT.


	20. day 20: t r e e s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 20: trees  
> lance's inner monologue after nyma chained him to the tree

Lance is ready to scream.

He has screamed, already, several times. The problem with being chained to a tree in the middle of nowhere on a planet in the middle of space is that there is no one around to hear you screaming like a banshee. It doesn’t do anything to get him closer to a rescue, but it makes him feels a little bit better. He screams a couple more times, just for dramatic effect, and then he lets his head thunk against the ground. His throat is scratchy and raw, and he clears it a couple times, trying to swallow the rising bile.

Lance knows that the rest of the team judges his flirting. He knows that they’re going to side-eye him suspiciously for weeks, going to question his decisions because they don’t think he has his priorities in order. He knows this, and it hurts him more deeply than he’s willing to admit.

He’s lonely, not that he’ll ever admit it to the rest of the team. But there are seven people aboard the Castle of Lions, and seven divided by two is three with one left over. Lance doesn’t like to rush to conclusions, but he’s pretty positive he’s the one left over.

Shiro and Keith, obviously, are a pair. They’ve been close since before the Kerberos mission, before Shiro crash-landed on earth and before they ended up in space. They’re as close as brothers can be without being related by blood, and Shiro is basically 85% of Keith’s impulse control. Shiro trusts Keith, the kind of implicit trust that comes from having years of backlogged friendship, and some days Lance feels Shiro will never listen to him the way he listens to Keith, or take him as seriously. 

Allura and Coran are close, too. Lance had thought that, maybe, he could bond with Allura over the loss of their homeworlds and families. But Allura misinterprets his genuine attempts as flirting. Which is understandable, Lance supposes, because he does flirt a lot. It’s just part of who he is. Allura, however, seems to see everything he does as flirting, and she brushes him off in favor of commiserating with Coran. Lance tries to shift his arms, just a little bit, to relieve some of the tension the cuffs cause, and winces when he only makes it worse.

He’d thought things would be different with Pidge and Hunk. The three of them were the Galaxy Garrison trio, after all, and Hunk and Lance were already very close. But here in space, Hunk and Pidge have bonded over a fascination with the myriad facets of new alien tech that have appeared. They spend most of their time in the lab, working on ship upgrades or lion modifications or other things with unpronounceable names and incomprehensible functions.

So Lance lays here, chained to an alien tree on an alien planet and waiting for a rescue from someone flying an alien cat-shaped warship. He can feel the weird cuffs chafing against his wrists, and he silently laments the bruises he’s going to have there.

If these were Earth handcuffs, Lance wouldn’t have any problems escaping. He’s trained himself to pick all sorts of locks out of a childhood fascination with Harry Houdini. The problem with alien cuffs is that they’re energy shackles, primarily. This makes sense, on some level; energy cuffs are much more difficult to pick your way out of. Pidge, probably, could hack her way out of these if she tried, and Hunk could most likely engineer his way to a solution. Shiro’s Galra hand could short-circuit these cuffs like it was nothing, and Keith’s smart enough not to get caught.

It’s only Lance, today, chained to this _stupid motherfucking tree_ , who’s snared like a rat in a trap.

He can’t help it – he likes to believe the best about people. Hunk, ever the cautious one, was completely and utterly right, and Lance disregarded him because he feels the need to make friends. He wants to reach out to people because he remembers being a scrawny, scared kid in first grade at a new school with no one reaching out to him. He doesn’t want anyone else to feel like that. 

That friendliness, Allura had told him, was a quintessential part of the Blue Lion’s paladin.

That friendliness, he reflects now, is about to get the Blue Lion handed to Zarkon on a silver platter. 

If Zarkon gets the Blue Lion, forget Allura and the team being angry at him, Lance will never forgive himself. He’ll hide himself somewhere on this barren lifeless planet and he’ll never let them find him. They’ll recover the Blue Lion and they’ll find someone else to pilot her – maybe Allura? She’s clearly much more capable than he will ever be. 

And then Keith’s voice is singing across the comms, “Hey, Lance! I got your lion back for you!” Lance’s heart immediately lightens, although the doubt doesn’t completely recede. Of course it was Keith who got Blue back, the Galaxy Garrison’s golden boy and Shiro’s perfect second in command. Lance forces it out of his mind as he slides seamlessly into witty, teasing banter with Keith, and he holds it out of his mind as the telltale roar of a lion’s engines appears in the sky above him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someday i will write an actual oneshot ft. several offscreen canon klance scenes including keith unchaining lance from that tree and keith cradling lance in his arms.   
> someday. <3


	21. day 21: f a v o r i t e c o l o r

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 21: your favorite color   
> the paladins' favorite colors, and their reasons for having them.

Lance’s favorite color has shifted many, many times over the years, because humans are such visually oriented creatures and he can’t bear to pick just one. Everything changes when he comes to space, when he meets Keith, when he and Keith become close. Lance has a definitive favorite color now – it’s purple, the combination of red and blue into something even more beautiful than either color is alone, the rich, deep purple of Keith’s eyes that gleams like flint when he fights and glows softly with flecks of gold when Lance kisses him in the low light of the hangars after a mission or the security of their bedroom. That purple is Lance’s favorite purple. 

Keith likes the color orange. He likes the harsh, shifting orange of the desert sands under the midday sun, he likes the warm, burnt orange of the towering sandstone rock spires that he used to scale during the day in between searching for the what he now knows was the Blue Lion. He likes the rich, deep orange of sunsets and sunrises streaked across the sky, fading into rosy pinks and brilliant golds and azure blues, events he used to watch from the top of the rock spires or the roof of his shack or any high place he could find. He likes the bright, vibrant, living orange of fire. He finds he especially like the golden orange color of Lance’s skin when they’re on a planet whose star sinks close to the horizon, as Lance laughs and cups his face and presses their foreheads together in a sappy, romantic kiss. 

Hunk has always been partial to the color yellow. It’s one of the warmer colors, and he loves all of the variants. Hunk loves the bright neon yellow of highlighters swept across textbooks late at night, he loves the rich gold of sunflower petals and daffodils and daisy centers. He loves the sharpness of lemons, the richness of gold brocade, the delicate sparkle of topaz gems and leaves in autumn and canary feathers and sunshine that pools warm like melted butter in the corner of a room. Then he came to space, and he was chosen by a bright yellow lion, and he met a brave Balmeran named Shay who risked her life for him, a girl with solid yellow eyes, and he loves the color yellow all the more. 

Shiro doesn’t have a favorite color, per se. He didn’t before his Galra captivity, anyway. But then he escapes and goes with Pidge to recover the Green Lion. They touch down on a peaceful planet, and Shiro spends the first several hours after being freed meandering slowly through an alien planet with Pidge. It’s nice, gliding lazily down a river in a canoe propelled by an apparently-friendly giant sloth, watching all of the vegetation pass slowly. Shiro has been in captivity for a year, and it’s so nice to see the varying green hues of the tropical alien rainforest. He sees the confidence boost that Pidge gets when the Green Lion roars in response and comes rocketing out of the vine temple, and then, he thinks, he does have a favorite color in green. 

Pidge enjoys the color blue. She and Matt used to spend hours upon hours lying flat on their backs in a field near their house, staring up at the blue summer sky and spotting cloud shapes. Blue is her favorite flavor of snow cone (because blue raspberry tastes nothing like raspberries, idiots, it tastes like the color blue and nothing else and everyone else can keep their incorrect opinions to themselves) and the color of the tiles on the bottom of the community pool where Matt taught her how to swim and the color of the walls of Matt’s bedroom in their old house where she used to spend hours sketching plans while Matt fiddled with his computer and the color of the blueprints she makes when she’s bored.

Allura has mixed feelings about the color pink. On one hand, it’s the Altean color of mourning, a color worn at funerals and on somber holidays to remember those who gave their lives in service of the greater good. On the other hand, it is the color of the beloved mountain juniberry flowers that she loves so much, the color of the juice from the summer berry festival that stained her new dress and the wall and upset her at the time but today provides her with some of her dearest memories. Pink is the color of the little markings on her face that set her apart as one of the last remaining Alteans, the same markings that her mother had, and it might traditionally be a color of sadness but she’s reinventing tradition and forging a new Altea. Pink is still a color of remembrance, but now it’s a color of strength, as well. Allura wears pink proudly, a symbol of remembrance for her lost culture and a symbol and her strength to persevere in the face of that loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> christmas is creeping ever closer . . .   
> i'm really excited for tomorrow's prompt. i've been looking forward to writing it and i hope you all enjoy reading it!!


	22. day 22: i n s p i r e d b y l y r i c s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 22: inspired by lyrics   
> i may fall  
> but not like this  
> it won’t be by your hand (i may fall)  
> not this place, not today  
> i may fall  
> bring it on, it’s not enough to take me down  
> i may fall, i may fall   
> \- "i may fall" jeff williams (ft. casey lee williams)

Keith’s visor is cracked.

There’s a long, jagged slice running diagonally from the top left of his helmet to the bottom right, smaller cracks branching out and fracturing like spiders’ webs. He can feel blood pooling around him, spreading from a jagged, blackened hole in his armor, a gaping tear in the flesh of his stomach. If he manages to make it to a healing pod, he should survive, but those odds are getting slimmer every second.

He can’t see any other team member clearly. He can see prone shapes littering the ground – some of them bear the distinct grey and purple markings of Galra sentry drones. A few are stark white, splashed with vivid colors – pink, yellow, green – and stained with uncharacteristic red. Keith can barely turn his head, but he can see figures advancing on his team: long, multicolored tendrils, large and muscular, hooded with a smaller figure writhing on its shoulders, calm and cold and calculated. A fifth figure behind them, purple skin and gleaming fangs and a long, thick mane of white hair, and Keith tries with renowned vigor to move because Lotor is grabbing Pidge by the front of her armor and lifting her at the throat.

“Pidge,” he rasps, trying to push himself up on his forearms. His entire body shakes as he collapses again, wincing as it puts more pressure on his wound. “Get – get away from my team.”

Lotor doesn’t hear him, and neither do any of his generals, all preoccupied with the fallen paladins closest to them. Keith sucks in a rattling, painful breath and tries again.

“ _Get away from my team!_ ”

The roar is enough to turn Lotor’s head, his generals’ heads, and Keith’s (as best he can), because suddenly Lance is there. The red bayard, unformed, hangs limply from his fingers, and Lance’s normally happy face is twisted in a fierce expression of protective rage. “ _Get away from them_ ,” he snarls, and Lotor laughs. 

“What are you going to do about it, paladin? Do they even need you here?” He drops Pidge to the ground, and she keels over with a soft cry of pain.

Keith is ready to cry; he remembers what Lance said to him, about stepping down as a paladin, feeling like a sixth wheel. He knows that this is exactly the thing that Lance is vulnerable to, and he prays that Lance knows better than to believe this bullshit. Lance, to his credit, fails to rise to Lotor’s taunting, and Keith can’t say he could avoid the same pitfall. “Get away from them, Lame-tor, or I swear I’m going to tear you and your petty bitch squad limb from limb.” 

The bayard comes up in a sharp arc, gleaming in the low light, and suddenly Lance is holding a sniper’s rifle, long and elegant barrel glinting with every tiny shift of his arms. Lotor and his generals are shocked, as is Lance, who quickly recovers. His fingers find the trigger quickly, and his eye lines up the scope.

“Resistance is futile,” Lotor says. “No matter your misguided ideals or the strength you think you possess, there are five of us, and only one of you. You will fall this day, Paladin, and I will finally reclaim the lions of Voltron for the Galra empire. You cannot hope to ascertain victory this day.”

“I may fall,” Lance says, voice steady and sure, “but it will not be here. It will not be by your nasty Galra hands. I am going to take you down, and I am going to save my team.”

“Your bravado will not hold out forever,” a different Galra general growls – the big, buff one. “There will come a time and place when you die!”

Lance fires five blasts rapidly, adjusting the barrel slightly with each shot. Each bolt hits one of the Galra in the chest, and they convulse with electricity before collapsing into a twitching, sparking heap. “Not today, Satan,” Lance says. “Not today. And not this place.”

He crouches near Keith, carefully pulling the helmet off and gently cradling Keith in his arms, cupping his face and smoothing his thumb along under Keith’s eye. “Lance,” Keith rasps, barely able to make a sound. “L – Lance.”

“Hey, baby,” Lance whispers. “Everything is gonna be okay.”

Keith widens his eyes. “Lance, behind you!” 

The tall, buff general has risen again, and she lunges at Lance with a furious snarl. Lance sprints across the room, clinging to Keith, and tucks him gently into a corner before scrambling up into a vantage perch. The general slams her fists against the wall and roars, but Lance just laughs and leaps to the next available platform. She chases him from the ground, Lance vaulting through the air in a series of wonderful gymnastics that have Keith’s head spinning from more than just blood loss.

Lance fires while he’s in midair, landing three more stun shots against the Galra general before she goes down for good this time. He leaps off the platform, bayard retracting into his armor as he executes a perfect handspring landing.

“I won’t be felled here, today, when my team is depending on me,” Lance says. The door whirs open to reveal Shiro and Coran, bringing the cavalry guns blazing, and the light shines like a halo around Lance’s silhouette. He’s like an angel, reaching a hand out to Keith, voice soft and reassuring.

Keith isn’t sure if he passes out from the hole in his stomach or the sight of Lance’s smile framed in blazing light, but when he wakes up, healing pod whirring as he steps out and into Lance’s warm and waiting arms, he’s sure that he’s absolutely head-over-heels in love with this boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this song is from the rwby soundtrack. i love rwby. rwby is my favorite. come scream about it on tumblr with me!!   
> IT CRIMMINS. MURRY CRIMMINS.


	23. day 23: s h a d o w s / r e f l e c t i o n s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 23: shadows / reflections  
> lance reflects on a life in keith's shadow

Lance stares up at the Red Lion, fingers curling carefully around the red bayard, and resists the urge to fling it across the room and run screaming to beg Blue to take him back.

Everyone’s been talking about what a good job Allura has done, what a natural paladin she is, how seamlessly she fits into Blue’s cockpit and how well she handles her bayard. And they’re talking about Keith, what a good leader he is, how he’s doing his best to fill Shiro’s shoes and how he’s grown as a leader of the team. Lance stands here, under the Red Lion’s massive shadow, and feels like throwing up.

During his time at the Galaxy Garrison, all anyone talked about was Keith. Keith Kogane, the most talented pilot their generation has ever seen. Keith Kogane, the best student in the entire school. Keith Kogane, the most desirable bachelor for any gender. Keith Kogane this, Keith Kogane that, and Lance is sick of Keith Kogane before they even meet. After the mysterious disappearance of the Kerberos mission, Keith Kogane disappeared too; no one knows exactly what happened to him (other than the paladins on board this ship), so Lance managed to slide into fighter class.

Even there, it was nothing but ridicule, constant reminders that he’s only here on a technicality, here because a competent person left. Then he made it into space, and the giant blue lion ship they found chose him. She could have had Shiro or Hunk or Pidge or the infamous Keith Kogane himself, but she chose Lance McClain, and that was all her really needed.

Now, with this lion swap, Lance is right back where he started – right back in Keith’s shadow. Keith is moving up in the world, leading the defenders of the universe, and Lance has been ejected from the lion that _chose him_ and stuck into Keith’s rejects.

He leaves Red and walks slowly over to Blue. Her eyes don’t follow him anymore, and there isn’t even the slightest trace of light. Lance lays one hand on her massive paw, and he almost cries when he realizes that he can’t feel her presence in the back of his mind anymore. He can’t really feel Red, either. What he does feel is completely cut off, from his team and his lion and everyone around him.  

“Hey, Blue,” Lance whispers. “You gonna let me in, girl? Just once? For old times’ sake?”

There’s nothing, not the slightest glimmer of a response, and Lance can feel his heart breaking. He looks at the bayard in his hand, seeing his reflection tinted an ugly shade of red, and then the bayard shifts, the most minute of tilts, and it’s not him at all but Keith. Lance flings the bayard away from him and screams, a single long, low noise of pain and sorrow. When the doors whir open, he immediately dives beneath Blue, hiding behind one enormous leg. “Please, he whispers, feeling the familiar clenching of his heart and knot twisting of his stomach that signals anxiety is coming.

“Please, Blue. Please just hide me. I know you hate me now, I know I’m just –” he lets out a watery, panicked gasp, too frightened to even care about the tears pouring down his face. “I know I’m just a pale reflection of Keith, I know I’ll never be anything more than his shadow. But please – please, if you ever meant to choose me at all – please, don’t let them see this. Don’t, please. Please, Blue.” 

The footsteps get louder and closer, and then there’s a soft, rumbling noise and the blue shields are sliding down around the blue lion.

“Blue? Did you hear something down here?” And oh, that’s Keith, and Lance shakes his head rapidly, knees against his chest and breath coming out in short hyperventilating bursts. “I guess it was my imagination . . . thanks, Blue." 

Keith’s footsteps fade out of the hangar, and Lance slides onto his side, sobbing. “Thank you, Blue.” He curls carefully under the shadow of a lion that used to be his and rides out the tide of his anxiety, shaking and sobbing. And when the barrier finally lifts, Lance sees Pidge and Hunk working on the Yellow Lion, sees Keith curled beneath the Red Lion the way he was curled beneath Blue mere moments ago, and he takes a deep breath.

“Time to go save our fearless leader,” Lance mutters, plastering a smile across his face and shoving the anxiety into the darkest corner of his mind. He has other priorities right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry, my son, but i saw that prompt and i had to write the angst. please forgive me : (  
> my baby brother is five today!!


	24. day 24: c a n ' t l i v e w i t h o u t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 24: something you can't live without   
> lance and pidge mourn a profound loss

“NOOOOOOO!”

Pidge’s heartbroken scream echoes across the castle, Lance desperately trying to comfort her with a gentle big-brother hand on her shoulder.  Shiro, Hunk, and Keith watch from the other side of the lounge, unsure of whether they should move help or not. Keith side-eyes Shiro, who shakes his head just the smallest amount.  

“How can this be?” Pidge sobs, curling against Lance’s chest. He pulls her onto his lap, smooths through her hair with one hand, and runs the other across her back. “I can’t believe something like this happened to us!”

“I know, Pidge,” Lance soothes. “It’s going to be alright.” Keith and Hunk make exasperated eye contact as Shiro shrugs and leaves. “We’ll get through this together.”

“I can’t believe I miscalculated this badly,” she sniffles. 

“It’s not your fault.” 

“Are they really this upset?” Keith asks. 

“Shh!” Hunk hisses. “You can’t be so insensitive about these kinds of things, Keith.” 

“How the fuck would I know what the proper protocol is, Hunk, I live in the desert,” Keith snaps. Hunk looks worried, as though he’s offended him, but then Keith snickers and holds up his fist. Hunk smiles back and taps their fists together, and they stand there watching Lance and Pidge mourn. 

“Stay strong,” Lance whimpers, and then they’re both crying, sobbing loudly on the couch and clinging to each other like it’s the end of the world.

“So, the real question is,” Hunk says, fifteen minutes later, “how long is it going to take for them to realize that Pidge and I, together, can engineer a way to connect the video game systems to the castle so they can have a tournament to the death?”

Keith considers the possibilities. On the one hand, Pidge is a brilliant tech engineer, and she’s really really smart. She’ll be able to reverse engineer a video game hookup for one of the castle holoscreens in fifteen minutes, probably could do it in her sleep.  On the other hand, Lance is a compelling personality and incredibly melodramatic, and it’s very easy to get sucked into his emotional black hole if you’re not careful. 

“Longer than it should,” he settles on. Hunk manages to laugh out loud at that, and Lance and Pidge whip their heads around to glare. 

“How _dare_ you mock us in our time of sorrow!” Lance gasps. “This is a _UNIVERSAL CRISIS_ , Keith Elizabeth Kogane, and I did not come here to be insulted by you! You colossal dicknozzle!” 

“What the hell is a dicknozzle?” Keith asks.

“Your middle name is _Elizabeth_?” Hunk asks, incredulous. Keith punches him in the arm.

“Of course not, Hunk. Lance likes to make up middle names for me when he’s annoyed.”

“But seriously, though, how long would it take us to jerry-rig the video game into the castle’s holoscreen? Fifteen minutes?” 

Pidge rolls her eyes and pushes away from Lance. “Please, you insult me. I can do it in seven.”


	25. day 25: a n a n i m a l

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 25: an animal  
> coran and alfor discuss what to model the comet ships after

“Ooh! Ooh! How about an angry klan muirl?” 

“Coran, for the last time. We cannot use a klan muirl for the comet ships. I do not think that shape is viable for what our purposes.” 

“But they’re fierce, and strong, and feared by almost everyone, Your Majesty! Especially when they’re angry. Isn’t that the point of this weapon?” 

“These ships are not a weapon. Not primarily, anyway. Their purpose is to inspire hope throughout the galaxy, and to help spread the Altean ideals of peace and diplomacy. An angry klan muirl will not make them feel secure that we can protect them.” 

“Well, how about a swivlaek?”

“These ships will not be primarily water dwelling.” 

“They can swim through the air, like the majestic swivlaek do in water!” 

“Those features, while streamlined, will most likely be a greater hindrance than asset.” 

“Space isn’t that different to water, Your

“Well, how about a spiky-crested rilukazoo?”

“What would all those spikes even do, Coran?” 

“Oh, lots, Your Majesty! Why, I bet we could make them projectiles!”

“ . . . Projectiles.”

“Oh yes! The spiky-crested rilukazoo can fire its spiky crests to dissuade predators! They regrow rather quickly, which is an asset we’ll have to adapt for, I admit –” 

“And how do you propose we do that, Coran? I refuse to build a thousand new spines every varga simply because the other paladins prove to be terrible shots. No, we need a better creature.”

“Well, how about the lovable uyrst?”

“An uyrst.”

“Yes! You said this was to be a symbol of peace and diplomacy? These creatures are docile and tame – not even a child would fear them!” 

“That might give the wrong impression, Coran. We do not wish to be perceived as violent dictators, but we also wish to convey strength, not show that we will roll over and let other planets walk all over us.” 

“How about the lion?” 

“The lion?” 

“Yes, Your Majesty! They’re majestic and graceful, but also strong and fierce. Would they work?” 

“ . . .”

“ . . . Your Majesty?”

“Coran, I hesitate to say this, but I do believe you are a genius.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you celebrate, merry christmas!!!!


	26. day 26: f a v o r i t e p a r t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 26: your favorite part of voltron  
> an exclusive interview with the paladins of voltron, about their favorite parts of defending the universe

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE PALADINS OF TEAM VOLTRON

**Interviewer:** So, first of all, I have to say, thank you so much for agreeing to come in today!

**Princess Allura:** Of course! It is a pleasure to spread more information about Voltron and the Voltron Alliance with the rest of the universe.

**Lance:** Yeah, I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to be universal news.

**Pidge:** Oh, so you weren’t nervous the entire ride here? You weren’t constantly about to puke?

**Lance:** Pidge!

**Hunk:** Yeah, it was nice not to be the one feeling sick for once!

_*Pidge and Hunk high-five; Allura face-palms; Lance glares into the corner*_

**Interviewer:** I have to ask, our readers are dying to know! What’s your favorite part of Voltron? Princess? 

**Allura:** Well, Voltron is a big part of my heritage – my father, King Alfor, built the lions and was the original paladin of the Red Lion. I miss him dearly, as I miss planet Altea. My favorite part is the connection to my loved ones. I’m upholding a sacred duty to the universe and to my people. 

**Lance:** That was beautiful, Princess!

**Interviewer:** And you, Lance?

**Lance:** Well, I’m not gonna lie, I do enjoy meeting all the wonderful aliens on the planets we save –

**Hunk:** _*exaggerated sigh*_  

**Pidge:** _*exaggerated groan*_

**Lance:** Hey, hey, I’m not done! I also enjoy seeing all of the different worlds, because back on Earth, there was never any spare funds or time or anything for travelling. But I always dreamed about seeing the world. That’s why I joined the Galaxy Garrison. Even if I didn’t get to fly to the stars, at the very least I got to see another part of the world. How lucky am I to get to see the entire universe?

**Hunk:** That – was really moving, actually. My turn! My favorite part is definitely watching other people finally stand up for themselves. It’s heartbreaking, y’know? Seeing all these planets enslaved for so many years! But we’re inspiring them to fight back, and it’s truly amazing to watch!

**Interviewer:** Beautiful sentiments, Hunk! Pidge? How about you?

**Pidge:** Well, the whole reason I went to the Garrison was to look for my family. They were lost on a mission, and we later found out they were kidnapped by the Galra. My favorite part of Voltron is the opportunity I got to rescue my brother, Matt Holt. I’m so happy to have seen him again.

**Interviewer:** How sweet! Well, that only leaves you, Shiro!

**Shiro:** The Galra empire is a menace. They destroy worlds. My favorite part is the ability to fight back and ensure that no one ever suffers at the hands of their cruelty again.

**Interviewer:** That’s all the time we have for today, but –

**Lance:** Wait! 

**Interviewer:** I beg your pardon? 

**Lance:** There’s one paladin left!

_*Lance, activating a holoscreen*_

**Keith:** Hello, there.

**Lance:** Keith is a paladin too, but he’s on temporary hiatus. Keith, what’s your favorite part of Voltron?

**Interviewer:** We really don’t have time for –

**Lance,** _enunciating more clearly:_ Keith! What’s your favorite part of Voltron?

**Keith:** The other people. The team. We’re close, like a family. That’s my favorite part. I gotta go, Lance. I’ll talk to you later?

**Lance,** _fondly:_ Okay, Keith.

_*holoscreen shuts off*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	27. day 27: i n s p i r a t i o n

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 27: something that inspires you  
> pidge, keith, and lance discuss reasons for defending the universe

“Why did you do this, anyway?”

Pidge has never really been one for tact – not that she doesn’t care. She just doesn’t see the point in mincing words and talking around a subject as opposed to confronting it head-on. It wastes time and effort. That might be why she and Keith get on so well; he can be blunt and unforgivingly honest, nothing like Lance’s (admittedly useful) silver tongue, and they don’t have to worry about offending each other with brutally candid sentiments. 

Keith looks up at her from across the room, where Lance is gently winding white medical tape around a gash on his arm. It’s not serious enough to need a healing pod, but Altean medical tape has healing properties of its own. “What?”

“Why did you decide to be a pilot? Not even a paladin of Voltron, but back on Earth – what made you think that you wanted to fly spaceships?” 

“Shiro,” Keith answers immediately. “He was the closest to family that I’d ever come, and I followed him around like a puppy back then. When the mission went down, I was determined to find him.” 

“Sap,” Lance teases, bumping his shoulder carefully against Keith’s.

“What about you, then?” Keith challenges, face red and grumpy. 

Lance sobers almost immediately. “I . . . well –” 

“It was me, wasn’t it,” Keith says, and there’s no malice in his voice, but there’s no kindness either. 

“I came from a big family, ok?” Lance snaps, and he’s defensive now, not angry, although he’s well on his way. “I’m used to constantly having to prove myself. And I went to the Garrison expecting things to be different, and then it was just more of the same – one person gets held on a pedestal as this great shining paragon and the rest of us are just expected to follow along in their shadow! It was just more of the same, and I hated it. I was determined to surpass that paragon – to become the new one. So that was my inspiration – beating Keith and proving my worth.”

“Is that still what inspires you?” Keith asks.

“Not really?” Lance says, and there’s confusion in the soft tones of his voice. Pidge leans forward, elbows propped on her knees to focus, and Keith watches with a neutral expression and quiet, flat eyes. He’s not angry, not yet, but Pidge recognizes the tightened jaw muscles and slightly labored breathing of someone struggling to maintain calmness. She knows the expression well, since Keith most likely learned it from Shiro, who mastered it from dealing with her and her brother.

“Take your time,” she says, and she normally eschews tact but this is nothing but honesty. “Find the right words to express yourself with clarity.”

“You’re still the reason I do what I do, Keith, but not because I feel the need to be better than you in the negative way. I want to be as good as you are so that I can protect you if the need arises. You’re strong and fearless and you do everything in your power to keep people safe. I want to do that too, and I want to have the strength to protect you when you cannot protect yourself. You mean so much to me, babe. Sometimes, I’m so sick of the universe that the fact you’re in it is the only reason I can bear to continue defending it.” 

Keith is slackjawed and speechless, face flushed not from embarrassment or anger but from shock and love. Lance’s face is open and earnest, because he might have an above-average ability to conceal his emotions and a tongue as silvery as the stars but he swore long ago to never, ever lie to his team without life or death importance at stake, and Pidge knows Keith knows Lance well enough to spot a lie from several miles away. 

Lance smiles, and it’s not the fake smile he plasters across his face for diplomatic meetings with members of the Voltron Alliance or the flirtatious grin he slips into like a second skin but a warm, kind smile that makes his entire face glow softly as he ties off the medical tape and sets it aside in favor of cupping Keith’s face in his hands like it’s the most precious treasure in the universe. 

“I defend the universe because I want to be worthy of your affection,” he says, and that’s all it takes for Keith to wrap his arms around Lance’s neck and bury one hand in the soft hair near the base of his skull and press their mouths together. Pidge rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning, even as she shouts “PDA” and stands, lazily arching her back in a cat-like stretch, to leave them to their moment. 

When she passes Hunk on his way in, she shakes her head as he reaches to the doorpad, creating a holographic “Do Not Disturb” sign with a flick of her fingers. Pidge seriously doubts anyone needs to be exposed to their particular brand of “inspiration”.


	28. day 28: h o m e w o r k

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 28: homework  
> two sets of galaxy garrison cadets, bound by one unmanageable physics sheet

Shiro picks up a pencil, and for a split second, Matt thinks he’s actually going to contribute to cracking Iverson’s physics sheet. Instead, he simply slides it between two of his fingers and begins to twirl it rapidly, like Matt’s seen professional drummers do with drumsticks. It never ceases to amaze him, the skill and dexterity in those nimble fingers, fingers that wrap around a steering mechanism with precision and carry unbeatable hand-to-hand combat strength. At the same time, though, they’re gentle and caring, when they trace Japanese characters with the lightest of touches against Matt’s bare side when they curl lazily in bed, when they seek out his hand and carefully slide their way between his own, when they comb through his hair as Matt drops his head into Shiro’s lap.

“Are you going to help me with this, Shiro?” Matt asks, abandoning his own physics sheet in favor of leaning back to balance his chair on the back two legs. 

“I mean, I could,” Shiro says, snatching Matt’s pencil up to spin in his other hand. “But I really don’t _want_ to, and I know for a fact that you don’t want to either.”

“No, but I’ll tell you what I do want to do, and that’s graduate on time,” Matt says seriously, letting his chair come to rest on four legs again. “We’re slated to go on the Kerberos expedition with my father, and we can’t do that if we don’t graduate at the top of the class. We definitely won’t if we don’t graduate at all.”

Shiro sets the pencils down and takes Matt’s hand in his own, fingers spinning mindless circles against his palm. “Hey, relax. I know how important this mission is to you.”

“You should have seen Katie when I told her I got in,” he says. “Man, she was _ecstatic_. She was so happy that we were going to the Garrison together. And now I have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to go into _actual space_ with my father and the love of my life, and if I don’t crack this _fucking physics sheet_ then I’m going to waste that chance!”

Shiro leans forward and kisses the top of Matt’s head. 

“I’m serious, Takashi,” he says, and Shiro runs his fingers gently through Matt’s hair.

“I know, babe,” he says. “We’re going to graduate on time, and we’re going to go into space with your dad, and it’s going to be amazing, and then we’re going to come home and discover that Katie and Keith have eloped in our absence.” 

Matt snorts. “Please, Takashi, Pidge wouldn’t run away to marry Keith.”

“Not elope like go get secret married, elope like run off into the middle of the desert looking for fucking cryptids or something.” 

“They’ve only met three times!” 

“Yeah, Matt, and the last time they met they spent three hours talking about how likely you would be to find a chupacabra outside of the American southwest. Trust me, they’d get along like a house on fire.”

Matt lets one hand come up to cup Shiro’s face, running his thumb across the bridge of his nose and pressing their foreheads together. “Do you promise we’re going to get into space?”

“Yes, you colossal nerd, I promise we’re going to get into space.” 

“So you better help me with this damn physics homework, then.” 

“Alright, alright!” Shiro laughs. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” 

Matt leans in and kisses Shiro, feeling those fingers he loves so much thread into his hair ad scratch lightly at his scalp. When Shiro pulls away, he leaves a single kiss on Matt’s forehead before picking up just one pencil and turning to the physics sheet. 

A few years later, in the same room, two young cadets hunch over a similar physics homework sheet while a third reclines on the bed, bicycling his legs in the air and tossing and catching a small rubber ball in his hands. “Are you going to help us with this physics sheet, Lance?” Hunk asks. 

“Yeah,” Pidge snaps. “We already failed the simulator. If we don’t do well on this sheet, we might risk losing our place in the flight school. That’s something I cannot risk.”

“We know, we know,” Lance drones. “Well, the answer to number three is sixteen miles per hour.” 

Pidge looks from Hunk to Lance to the physics sheet, and then back to Lance. “How did you –”

“Hey, I didn’t get into the Garrison for nothing!” Lance crows. “Here, I’ll walk you through it.”

And so all three of them crowd around a desk, watching Lance’s hands spin lines across the paper, ignorant of the pair of initials carved in the corner of the desk under the lamp: _TS + MH._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaah, yes.   
> almsot done! i can't believe i've gotten this far - thank you for all your support!!


	29. day 29: w a t e r

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 29: water   
> allura finally tells lance and keith how to work the altean pool

“Are you sure this is right?” 

“Listen, man, this is what Allura said!” Keith snaps, feeling along the wall for a control panel. Lance, towel slung around his shoulders and shorts riding dangerously low, exposing the tops of his hipbones, stands a few paces away, hips cocked in defiance, watching and waiting as Keith tries to work the pool. 

“Yeah, but you don’t actually speak Altean, do you?”

“No, but I have a translation chart. Pidge made it – you know, she’s actually pretty good with languages. I’m thinking of having her teach me the Galran dialect.” 

“Why?”

“It’s part of my heritage,” Keith says, and then, when Lance’s silence stretches on unbearably long, “and, that way we won’t have to rely only on her to translate Galran information.” 

Lance huffs skeptically, but then Keith finds the right switch and _pulls_ , and the world is spinning rapidly like an aircraft in freefall, and then they’re in the shallow end of the pool.

The very first thing they do is cheer. The second thing they do is carefully set their towels down on the dry edge of the pool. The third thing they do is immediately spring to the deep end and race each other around the pool. Keith can swim, of course; he learned it as a survival necessity at the Garrison, because one thing about the desert is that there really isn’t an opportunity for someone to swim. But Lance rockets effortlessly through the water, like he was born to do it, like he’s spent his whole life in the water – and he did grow up on a beach, Keith thinks.

After Lance wins, Keith takes a while to sit on the edge of the pool, feeling the smooth tiling under his fingertips, and watches Lance swim around. He knows all kinds of different strokes, and after a while it becomes painfully obvious that Lance is showing off for his boyfriend. Keith doesn’t comment or complain, just watches Lance’s lithe, toned figure glide through the water like a serpent, like a mermaid, like a dolphin or a whale or a sea turtle. Lance is smooth and effortless and beautiful, flowing like water and adapting just as seamlessly.

Keith is not like that. Lance is water, has always been water, cool and slick and loved by everyone. And if Lance is water, Keith thinks, then he is _fire_. He burns through every room he enters, leaving scalded walls and burned people in his wake. He’s always been bright, far too bright for his own good, and he tears through enemies and friends alike like wildfire leaving nothing but ashes and destruction in his wake. 

Lance knows this, knows how bad Keith is with all things people and how desperately he wants to change that. He knows that Keith will never be water, that there will always be fire burning bright in him, and he wouldn’t change that for the world. Keith watches as his water boy performs an elegant, perfectly-executed dive into the water and comes back up, pushing himself out of the water and up to Keith’s face for a kiss. Keith, laughing, kisses back, only to emit the most undignified shriek as Lance pulls him into the pool.

When Keith resurfaces, he throws a handful of water at Lance, splashes it at him, and Lance sputters and flings water back at him, and then they’re playing the most competitive splash fight ever, and if it eventually devolves into slow, languid kissing, further proving their history of love from intense competition, well, no one else needs to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only two more days to go! what a ride this has been - thank you so much for your support!!


	30. day 30: y o u r s e l f

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 30: yourself  
> some thoughts from each paladin, on what it means to be yourself

To Lance McClain, being yourself means being unapologetically you, even when everyone else around you laughs and points and degrades and shouts that everything you are is a lie, that you should give up on stupid dreams of flying spaceships because they’ll never come true, because you come from a poor family with too many children and you’ll never amount to anything. But you don’t listen to them, not now, not ever – you just work and pray and study your ass off, and you get a scholarship to get you into the Garrison and a Blue Lion to take you and four almost-strangers into space, and then you defend the universe.

To Keith Kogane, being yourself means knowing who you are, being willing to search through boxes and scour attics and search painful memories with a fine-toothed comb to understand who you are and why you do what you do, knowing your family history and being willing to accept it, the good parts and the bad parts and the gray-area parts all alike. It’s acknowledging that not every piece of your family’s legacy is worth emulating, but everything is worth remembering, because history paints people as heroes or villains but it’s in remembering the gray areas that one remembers the people, not just the shadows they cast, and that sometimes, you are more than what everyone thinks your family history marks you out to be.

To Katie Holt, being yourself means holding on to what you love and refusing to sacrifice that for anyone, taking care of your own and looking out for your family, whether that means reconfiguring your home’s internet signal to make sure that no hateful comment ever reaches your brother’s computer or breaking into a military base to search for your missing father and brother or disguising yourself as a boy to continue skulking around that military base or making your way into space to search for the people you love. It’s acknowledging that not all families consist of your blood relatives – sometimes a family can be a couple teenagers, a formerly-missing legend, a ten-thousand-year old princess, and her wacky advisor, and they’re just as much a family as a brother and father and mother and exactly as worth protecting.

To Hunk Garrett, being yourself means doing everything in your power to spread a little bit of happiness into the planet or the galaxy or the universe, because there are a lot of people that are unapologetic assholes and they do everything they can to make sure that everyone else feels like complete and utter garbage about themselves. So you smile, and you laugh, and you watch and wait and learn what makes people really, truly happy, learn their favorite songs and their favorite foods and their favorite colors and their favorite movies and their favorite people, and you amass an armada of kindness and make sure that you are always ready to help someone in need because the world is full of terrible people, true, but if you’re not a terrible person then that’s one less drop of hatred in the world and that’s worth fighting for. 

To Takashi Shirogane, being yourself means being unafraid to stand up for the things and the people that you believe in, whether that’s a moral ideal or a religious ideal or just the belief that people are people and don’t deserve to be treated any differently based on silly, stupid things like skin color or sexual orientation or religious belief systems. It’s looking at people that the world says aren’t worth protecting, that the majority of the universe has crumpled up and thrown aside like a used tissue, and taking them under your wing, standing between them and the barrel of someone else’s weapon and declaring that no one should ever feel marginalized or oppressed ever again if you can do something to stop it, and you can, so you will.

To Princess Allura, being yourself means being willing to sacrifice things that matter to you for the greater good, being able to step outside of yourself and make a critical examination of what you can and can’t afford to continue doing. It’s the ability to look at the people that need you and conform to what they see in you, to do your sacred duty and make sure that everything spins on the correct axis, but it’s also the ability to know when to take time to indulge, like playing with your pets between diplomatic encounters or taking personal days to do makeovers and gossip, because the world expects one thing but you desire another, and the happy medium is what keeps you sane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aagashdfhsa i cannot believe there's only one day left


	31. day 31: a l e g e n d

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 31: a legend  
> there is a legend told throughout the universe

There is a legend told throughout the galaxy. Sometimes it is displayed, loud vibrant and joyful and triumphant, shouted from rooftops and displayed from banners. Sometimes it is sung, mothers cradling children against their chests and telling them a bedtime story of a mighty warrior. Sometimes it is whispered, underground rebels huddling together trying to last the night and keeping themselves alive with the slenderest thread of hope. Sometimes it is cursed, as an enemy, with words laced in vitriol and hatred, but even that is not enough to put out such a fire.

On a Balmera officially titled X-95-Vox by the Galra empire but known simply as “home” to all its residents, a young Balmeran gathers a small horde of children close around a bonfire and tells a story. She tells of a skyling dressed in yellow, with an orange band around his head, accompanied by a man with an orange fluff on his lip and a funny accent. She tells how they came in their craft and how she helped them steal a crystal to power their strange ship. She shows them the healed, fading scars on her wrists from her Galra imprisonment, tells them how they came back and drove off the Galra, how a mighty princess, the last of her great civilization, saved their Balmera from an untimely end. She tells them of Voltron, and they cheer.

In the lowermost confines of a Galra cruiser, three soldiers huddle close to each other. They whisper to themselves of Voltron, a resistance movement to the Empire. They tell each other stories they’ve heard from those few fighters who return – the vicious fury of Voltron, how they’re tearing a hole right through the heart of the Galra empire. The soldiers tell of the wrath of Voltron, and no one dares to speak of the Galran resistance movement that fights by their sides but they all think, instinctively, that the possibility of defecting is stronger than ever. They speak of Voltron, and there is the smallest spark of hope, if only for a moment. 

On an icy, distant planet, a queen gathers her people with a flick of her tale and a swish of her hand. Her advisors float behind her as she announces to her people that they are free now. she tells them of the mercats that brought their saviors, recounts how the Baku Garden came to them and mind-swished them and kept them all enslaved to its hypnotic will. She announces a new garden, of statues and the finest sea plants, to mourn all those lost to the Baku. And she announces a special tribute, to the air-breathers, those brave paladins that saved them from a fate surely much worse than death. She shouts the name of Voltron, and the water froths with the cheers of a civilization saved. 

On a platform overlooking a row of Galra sentries, Haggar the druid witch summons lightning and flames and shouts about the rebellion. She tells them how their great and powerful emperor, Lord Zarkon, has been wounded, how it is all the fault of the horrible Voltron that he is indisposed. She indulges in their boos and hisses and jeers for the merest of moments, and then she silences them. She tells them that they must fight, and then a shot rings out. A traitorous member of the Blade of Marmora has infiltrated them, and suddenly there are shots ringing everywhere. Haggar curses the name of Voltron even as spell rise to her hands, but it rings like a promise and a prayer on the lips of the insurgents. 

There is a legend, told throughout the galaxy. Five brave individuals, coming together to become more than they could have ever been alone, and liberating the universe from the grip of the Galra empire. The legend spreads like fever, like wildfire, like lightning, like a gas released in the air. The legend grows, stretching, and parts of it become a little twisted, a little changed, a little tall tale-ish. But the heart of the tale remains strong and true. The legend tells of a warrior who avenges the weak and the downtrodden of the universe, a mighty robot who will take the fight to Zarkon and win the day every time, the strongest weapon in the universe not for its sword or guns or lasers or shield but for the hope it carries in its wings.

The name is Voltron, the universe’s legendary defender.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what a ride it's been! thank you all so much for the love and support through this experience! i'll see y'all with some more fics in 2018!!   
> <3<3<3<3

**Author's Note:**

> come scream at me on tumblr!!! @blade-of-altean-lance (i'm admin pidge!!)


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